91°µÍø

ORNL’s annual workshop has become the premier forum for molten salt reactor, or MSR, collaboration and innovation, convening industry, academia and government experts to further advance MSR research and development. This year’s event attracted a record-breaking 365 participants from across the country, highlighting the momentum to bring MSRs online.

Researchers for the first time documented the specific chemistry dynamics and structure of high-temperature liquid uranium trichloride salt, a potential nuclear fuel source for next-generation reactors. 

At ORNL, a group of scientists used neutron scattering techniques to investigate a relatively new functional material called a Weyl semimetal. These Weyl fermions move very quickly in a material and can carry electrical charge at room temperature. Scientists think that Weyl semimetals, if used in future electronics, could allow electricity to flow more efficiently and enable more energy-efficient computers and other electronic devices.

ORNL researchers completed successful testing of a gallium nitride transistor for use in more accurate sensors operating near the core of a nuclear reactor. This is an important technical advance particularly for monitoring new, compact.

The 2023 top science achievements from HFIR and SNS feature a broad range of materials research published in high impact journals such as Nature and Advanced Materials.

In a finding that helps elucidate how molten salts in advanced nuclear reactors might behave, scientists have shown how electrons interacting with the ions of the molten salt can form three states with different properties. Understanding these states can help predict the impact of radiation on the performance of salt-fueled reactors.

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s 91°µÍø are supporting the grid by improving its smallest building blocks: power modules that act as digital switches.

Six scientists at the Department of Energy’s 91°µÍø were named Battelle Distinguished Inventors, in recognition of obtaining 14 or more patents during their careers at the lab.

In the 1960s, 91°µÍø's four-year Molten Salt Reactor Experiment tested the viability of liquid fuel reactors for commercial power generation. Results from that historic experiment recently became the basis for the first-ever molten salt reactor benchmark.

91°µÍø scientists analyzed more than 50 years of data showing puzzlingly inconsistent trends about corrosion of structural alloys in molten salts and found one factor mattered most—salt purity.