Salt Production Facility for KP-FHR Nuclear Reactor to Be Built in the USA
US-based advanced reactor developer Kairos Power has begun construction on a new salt production facility for nuclear reactors at its manufacturing development campus in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the USA.
The plant will produce high-purity molten salt coolant for modern Kairos Power reactors, including Hermes demonstrator project at Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
The high-temperature reactor Kairos Power KP-FHR is cooled by a stable mixture of lithium fluoride and beryllium fluoride salts, known as Flibe, which allows the reactor to operate at low pressure, contributing to enhanced radiological containment and the reactor’s overall safety.
The new salt production facility will use a chemical process to produce large quantities of high-purity Flibe enriched with lithium-7 isotopes, which will meet strict specifications for the use at the reactor.
The efforts of the company are based upon last year’s successful production of 14 tons of unenriched Flibe to demonstrate the non-nuclear engineering test unit at Kairos’ Albuquerque campus.