From energy needs and a potential cure for cancer to clean water for all, Abilene Christian University’s molten salt nuclear reactor currently under construction and due to go online in 2025 may provide a key to three of life’s most pressing problems, said Alli Mae Berry, NEXT Lab research chemist at ACU.
Berry, speaking at the Kiwanis Club of Greater Abilene meeting Thursday, said the reactor is part of the the university’s Nuclear Energy eXperimental Testing Lab, aka NEXT, a department designed to find global solutions for the world’s most critical needs.
The design uses molten salts rather than water as a coolant.
“Molten salt reactors are a safe solution to providing clean energy, clean water and medical isotopes to the world,” Berry said.
The reactor will increase “world-class research going on in a variety of areas at ACU,” she said, providing unique educational experiences for students and jobs in the Abilene area.
ACU has joined three much larger state universities – Georgia Tech, Texas A&M and the University of Texas in this research.
tackling problems
The first major problem the reactor design can tackle is energy, she said, increasing the number of people in the world who have access to clean and safe power.
Energy usage drastically affects standards of living, Berry said, and even incremental improvements can increase a country’s quality of life dramatically. She presented a chart that showed that difference.
Another critical issue the reactor could help is cancer research, she said.
“If we can find a cure for cancer, it’d be incredible,” Berry said.
The reactor’s liquid fuel gives access to medical isotopes important for imaging and treating cancers.
A final need a salt-based reactor could help meet is clean water for drinking and sanitation.
Such is not just an issue in other countries, Berry said, but one throughout the United States.
“It’s even an issue here in West Texas,” she said.
Building a solution
The university submitted its construction permit in August, which is a “huge step forward and puts us years ahead of other people who are planning on doing research in commercial reactors,” Berry said.
Fuel cells will be provided by the US Department of Energy, and while in the world of power the reactor’s output will be relatively small – one megawatt thermal – it comes with significant characteristics that can later be applied to commercial applications.
Its design provides the advantage of operating at high temperatures, creating improved efficiency over standard water-cooled reactors and producing excess heat that can be used in industrial processes, Berry said.
“The coolant won’t boil,” she said, making the technology “walk-away safe.”
Heat can be used to desalinate water.
Unique design
“One of the really unique things about our reactor design … is that instead of solid fuel rods that are in conventional reactors, the uranium is in pellets inside these fuel rods,” Berry said.
That allows for more complete use of the fuel source.
“You can only use about 3%-5% of the uranium in these (conventional) fuel rods,” Berry said. “But if you have liquid fuel, and you have your fuel directly dissolved in the salt, you can use 100%. So, it is a huge increase in fuel utilization.”
The process allows for a decrease in waste, she said.
The search for research
Funding from Natura Resources has set up agreements among the Nuclear Energy eXperimental Testing Research Alliance, or NEXTRA, between the four participating universities.
The project is funded in part by a $30.5 million grant split between the four universities.
ACU, however, gets the most – about $21.5 million.
The Development Corporation of Abilene gave the project a $2.93 million incentive package, approved by the Abilene City Council, for NEXT Lab to expand its research and development facility at the site of the former Taylor Elementary School site.
The project’s university partners already have significant expertise, with A&M and UT already powering research reactors, albeit traditional water-cooled models, Berry said.
“But their expertise is invaluable in operating and maintaining a reactor, as well as licensing those reactors,” she said.
Right now, there are about 30 faculty and staff members and about 60 students “at any given point in the year” that participate, she said.
Safe space
Berry emphasized multiple times that the reactor design is safe, with nuclear power in general being statistically safe compared to sources such as oil and coal.
“Even if you just focus on the green energy, wind and solar have higher deaths than nuclear, even considering accidents like Fukushima and Chernobyl,” she said.
ACU’s reactor will be housed in the Dillard Science Engineering Research Center at the south end of the campus.
The 28.00-square-foot facility will have a large research bay, about 6,000 square feet, specialty research labs and offices.
The project should be completed by July, she said.
A cross-section shows a radiochemistry lab, where what’s happening in the reactor can be monitored at “any given moment,” she said.
The research bay itself is 80 feet long, 15 feet wide and 25 feet deep.
“So, that’s a huge trench,” she said. “And we will put the reactor in there as well as space to add any secondary systems to look at what’s happening.”
Building toward the future
A molten salt reactor experiment conducted at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, similar in design, ran safety for four years in the 1960s, Berry said.
“We’re modeling (our reactor) after that and adding some additional safety features,” Berry said.
As a university research reactor, the project is not allowed to generate power.
The intent, she said, is to understand what’s happening in a molten salt reactor, as well as understanding how different factors affect fuel levels and how isotopes can be extracted.
But the research will “inform the design and licensing of commercial reactors later on that will produce energy,” she said.
One of the more exciting uses of the reactor is something called Targeted Alpha Therapy, which has been shown to be effective in not just controlling but curing some cancer cases.
The treatment acts as a “smart bomb” to target cancer cells.
The reason it isn’t used more, she said, is because it requires materials that must be created, with short half-lives.
That means a continuous source is needed.
Enter ACU’s reactor.
“That is one of our huge goals is to be able to get that isotope, and other isotopes like it, out of future iterations of our reactor,” Berry said.
Energizing leadership
dr Kim Pamplin, NEXT Lab senior chemist and professor in ACU’s department of chemistry and biochemistry, said Berry’s story is one that highlights the importance of nurturing leadership.
She came to ACU from her high school in Austin as a chemistry major, he said, and had already worked as a leader as her band program’s drum major.
Soon, she took on leadership roles in Abilene in the chemistry department and as drum major for the Big Purple marching band at ACU.
“Then, she began to work in my research lab as a student,” Pamplin said. “As soon as she graduated from ACU (in 2019), we hired her in the NEXT lab.”
Berry now works as a research scientist at NEXT and as an analytical chemist, running the chemical analysis program, he said.
Berry said the project has a number of female students that aid in its research, in response to a question about the importance of attracting young girls to science, technology, engineering and math fields.
“(She) has maybe helped a dozen students working for her at any given time to continue that process of growth and training and enhancing leadership among our students,” Pamplin said, working toward a project that “affects us here in Abilene and around the world.”
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