Week 46 of 2023
Three nuclear energy innovation news!
🛡 Researchers at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology develop a neutron shielding film, the MXene-Boron carbide composite, which is over 1,000x thinner than conventional materials. This large-area, lightweight, and flexible film can be easily applied to various surfaces, resembling painting. It exhibits outstanding mechanical properties, maintaining its shape up to 98% after 20,000 bending tests, with a notable neutron shielding rate of 40%.
🚀 Halden Kjernekraft AS, a new company formed by Norsk Kjernekraft, Østfold Energi, and the municipality of Halden, will investigate the potential construction of a nuclear power plant with small modular reactors in Halden, Norway. Stemming from the municipality's 60-year experience hosting a nuclear fuel and materials testing reactor, the initiative aims to address a 16 TWh power deficit in the region, in collaboration with power-intensive industries.
🌊 Zeno Power secures a $7.5 million contract from the United States Department of Defense, sponsored by the Pentagon's Operational Energy Innovation Office and the Office of Naval Research, to develop and showcase a radioisotope power system for distributed power on the seabed by 2025. Zeno Power previously secured a $30 million funding package for a radioisotope-powered satellite for the United States Space Force and received a $15 million NASA award for a lunar-compatible radioisotope power system in collaboration with BLUE ORIGIN and SunPower Corporation.
👨🎓 Paper of the week: "Physics-constrained neural network for solving discontinuous interface K-eigenvalue problem with application to reactor physics", Nuclear Science and Techniques (2023). https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s41365-023-01313-0
👉 Potential disruptive improvement in reactor physics simulations thanks to neural networks.
👇 Did you spot anything else? Let me know!
