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A sample of thorium. The thorium fuel cycle is a nuclear fuel cycle that uses an isotope of thorium, 232 Th, as the fertile material. In the reactor, 232 Th is transmuted into the fissile artificial uranium isotope 233 U which is the nuclear fuel. Unlike natural uranium, natural thorium contains only trace amounts of fissile material (such as ...
A sample of thorium. Thorium-based nuclear power generation is fueled primarily by the nuclear fission of the isotope uranium-233 produced from the fertile element thorium.A thorium fuel cycle can offer several potential advantages over a uranium fuel cycle [Note 1] —including the much greater abundance of thorium found on Earth, superior physical and nuclear fuel properties, and reduced ...
Raw material flows and waste at a ThorCon fuel processing plant. Enriched uranium powers the cycle, but most of the energy comes from the more abundant thorium. [3] ThorCon has proposed a power station closely based on the Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment in the 1960s, claiming that its design requires no new technology.
This phase of the fuel cycle plan was supposed to be built starting with a 300 MWe prototype in 2016. [2] KAMINI is the world's first thorium-based experimental reactor. It is cooled and moderated by light water, fueled with uranium-233 metal produced by the thorium fuel cycle harnessed by the neighbouring FBTR reactor and produces 30 KW of ...
TMSR-LF1 (液态燃料钍基熔盐实验堆; "liquid fuel thorium-based molten salt experimental reactor") is a 2 MW t molten salt reactor (MSR) pilot plant located ...
The isotopes produced in the thorium fuel cycle are mostly not transuranic, but some of them are still very dangerous, such as 231 Pa, which has a half-life of 32,760 years and is a major contributor to the long-term radiotoxicity of spent nuclear fuel. [172]
In the thorium fuel cycle thorium-232 absorbs a neutron in either a fast or thermal reactor. The thorium-233 beta decays to protactinium-233 and then to uranium-233, which in turn is used as fuel. Hence, like uranium-238, thorium-232 is a fertile material.
Thorium is fertile material, and essentially all thorium can be used in a nuclear reactor. Thorium is not fissile in itself, absorbs a neutron to transmute into uranium-233, which can fission to produce energy. Therefore, a thorium based fuel cycle produces very little, easily manageable waste compared to uranium. [20]