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Concept
Liquid fluoride thorium reactor
Summary
The liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR; often pronounced lifter) is a type of molten salt reactor. LFTRs use the thorium fuel cycle with a fluoride-based molten (liquid) salt for fuel. 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. The secondary salt then transfers its heat to a steam turbine or closed-cycle gas turbine.
Molten-salt-fueled reactors (MSRs) supply the nuclear fuel mixed into a molten salt. 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 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. LFTRs are defined by the use of fluoride fuel salts and the breeding of thorium into uranium-233 in the thermal neutron spectrum.
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. The LFTR has recently been the subject of a renewed interest worldwide. Japan, China, the UK and private US, Czech, Canadian and Australian companies have expressed the intent to develop, and commercialize the technology.
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. Their liquid salt coolant allows higher operating temperature and much lower pressure in the primary cooling loop. These distinctive characteristics give rise to many potential advantages, as well as design challenges.
By 1946, eight years after the discovery of nuclear fission, three fissile isotopes had been publicly identified for use as nuclear fuel:
Uranium-235, which is already fissile, and occurs as 0.
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Ontological neighbourhood
Related concepts (16)
Thorium-based nuclear power
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—including the much greater abundance of thorium found on Earth, superior physical and nuclear fuel properties, and reduced nuclear waste production. One advantage of thorium fuel is its low weaponization potential; it is difficult to weaponize the uranium-233/232 and plutonium-238 isotopes that are largely consumed in thorium reactors.
Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment
The Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) was an experimental molten salt reactor research reactor at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). This technology was researched through the 1960s, the reactor was constructed by 1964, it went critical in 1965, and was operated until 1969. The costs of a cleanup project were estimated at about $130 million. The MSRE was a 7.4 MWth test reactor simulating the neutronic "kernel" of a type of inherently safer epithermal thorium breeder reactor called the liquid fluoride thorium reactor.
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