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Tom Holtsnider
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- TL;DR Summary
- How are two US companies designing a MSFR going to solve disposing of the isotope Cl-35? They are planing on using NaCl as the carrier salt.
This is in regards to the Molten Salt Fast Reactor ( MSFR). Two companies in the United States are designing the MSFR using NaCl as the carrier salt along with liquid fuel salt in the reactor. There is no moderator. The chlorine used in the NaCl salt must be nearly pure Cl-37. Chlorine in nature is composed of about 1/3 Cl-37, 2/3 Cl-35. Cl-35 when bombarded with neutrons becomes a Cl-36 isotope resulting in a poison to reactor criticality along with several other problems. Separating out the Cl-35 from Cl-37 is very difficult and expensive, perhaps so much so as to render the choice of NaCl as the carrier salt economically undesirable. My question is, are they planning on absorbing this enormous cost of separation or is there a way out that’s not apparent? Also why can’t they use NaF as the carrier salt instead?