Plutonium-239, which can be bred from non-fissile uranium-238 (>99% of natural uranium).Uranium-235, which is already fissile, and occurs as 0.72% of natural uranium.These distinctive characteristics give rise to many potential advantages, as well as design challenges.īy 1946, eight years after the discovery of nuclear fission, three fissile isotopes had been publicly identified for use as nuclear fuel: Their liquid salt coolant allows higher operating temperature and much lower pressure in the primary cooling loop. LFTRs differ from other power reactors in almost every aspect: they use thorium that is turned into uranium, instead of using uranium directly they are refueled by pumping without shutdown. Japan, China, the UK and private US, Czech, Canadian and Australian companies have expressed the intent to develop, and commercialize the technology. The LFTR has recently been the subject of a renewed interest worldwide. The LFTR concept was first investigated at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment in the 1960s, though the MSRE did not use thorium. LFTRs are defined by the use of fluoride fuel salts and the breeding of thorium into uranium-233 in the thermal neutron spectrum. Molten salt reactors, as a class, include both burners and breeders in fast or thermal spectra, using fluoride or chloride salt-based fuels and a range of fissile or fertile consumables. They should not be confused with designs that use a molten salt for cooling only (fluoride high-temperature reactors, FHRs) and still have a solid fuel.
Molten-salt-fueled reactors (MSRs) supply the nuclear fuel mixed into a molten salt. The secondary salt then transfers its heat to a steam turbine or closed-cycle gas turbine. In a typical design, the liquid is pumped between a critical core and an external heat exchanger where the heat is transferred to a nonradioactive secondary salt. LFTRs use the thorium fuel cycle with a fluoride-based, molten, liquid salt for fuel. The liquid fluoride thorium reactor ( LFTR often pronounced lifter) is a type of molten salt reactor.
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