Fusion is inching closer to reality with continuous development in this field as the United States Domestic Agency for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) recently completed the delivery of critical components for the support structure of central solenoid.
Described as an exoskeleton, or a cage, the support structure surrounds the central solenoid, which is a 60-foot-tall superconducting magnet at the heart of the ITER fusion machine.
The goal of enabling extended deep-space exploration is driving NASA, space agencies, and private players to explore nuclear power solutions.
Recently, two Southern California-based startups, Exlabs and Antares Nuclear, announced a partnership to advance deep-space missions with nuclear-powered spacecraft.
SpaceNews reported that the Exlabs’ Science Exploration and Resource Vehicle (SERV) spacecraft will be equipped with Antares microreactors.
Lithium-6 is essential for producing nuclear fusion fuel, but isolating it from the much more common isotope, lithium-7, usually requires liquid mercury, which is extremely toxic. Now, researchers have developed a mercury-free method to isolate lithium-6 that is as effective as the conventional method. The new method is presented in the journal Chem.
“This is a step towards addressing a major roadblock to nuclear energy,” says chemist and senior author Sarbajit Banerjee of ETH Zürich and Texas A&M University. “Lithium-6 is a critical material for the renaissance of nuclear energy, and this method could represent a viable approach to isotope separation.”
The conventional method used to isolate lithium-6, called the COLEX process, involves liquid mercury and has been banned in the United States since 1963 due to pollution concerns.
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Since it was first synthesized in a post-WW2 American lab in 1949, berkelium has been a rebel of the periodic table, defying quantum mechanics and taking on an extra positive charge that its relatives would never.
Now, a team of scientists from berkelium’s alma mater, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, has wrangled the elusive element into a rare partnership with carbon that will enable them to study it in more detail.
Thanks to challenges involved in producing and safely containing the heavy element, few chemists have had the privilege of dealing with berkelium. Just one gram of the stuff can cost a boggling US$27 million. For this experiment, just 0.3 milligrams of berkelium-249 was required.
Physicists have measured a nuclear reaction that can occur in neutron star collisions, providing direct experimental data for a process that had previously only been theorized. The study, led by the University of Surrey, provides new insight into how the universe’s heaviest elements are forged—and could even drive advancements in nuclear reactor physics.
Working in collaboration with the University of York, the University of Seville, and TRIUMF, Canada’s national particle accelerator center, the breakthrough marks the first-ever measurement of a weak r-process reaction cross-section using a radioactive ion beam, in this case studying the 94 Sr(α, n)97 Zr reaction. This is where a radioactive form of strontium (strontium-94) absorbs an alpha particle (a helium nucleus), then emits a neutron and transforms into zirconium-97.
The study has been published in Physical Review Letters.
After five years of trying to find the right ingredients, scientists at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) believe they have created the perfect recipe to fuel the world’s first critical fast-spectrum molten salt reactor.
The Molten Chloride Reactor Experiment (MCRE) at INL will test a new type of nuclear reactor that uses a mixture of molten chloride salt and uranium as fuel and coolant. This experiment allows researchers and scientists to evaluate the safety and physics of a molten chloride fast reactor that Southern Company and TerraPower plan to build.
This type of advanced reactor is an attractive option to provide electricity and heat for communities and industry. They operate at higher temperatures for improved efficiency, potentially reduced waste generation and inherent safety features due to the liquid fuel design.
For the first time, scientists have acquired direct evidence of rare, pulsing pear-shaped structures within atomic nuclei of the rare-earth element gadolinium, thanks to new research led by the University of Surrey, the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and the IFIN-HH research institute in Bucharest, Romania.
The study, published in Physical Review Letters, provides definitive proof of a strong collective “octupole excitation” in the nucleus of gadolinium-150, a long-lived radioactive isotope of this rare-earth element, which is used in applications such as superconductors, nuclear power operations and MRI contrast materials.
The experimental signature is interpreted as the protons and neutrons inside the atomic nucleus vibrating in a coordinated pattern, resulting in a pulsing, asymmetric, pear-shaped structure.