Molten salts and nuclear energy production
Résumé
Molten salts (fluorides or chlorides) have been taken in consideration very soon in nuclear energy production researches. This was initially due to their advantageous physical properties: good heat transfer capacity, radiation insensitivity, high boiling point, .. and they can be used in various situations: heat transfer, core coolants with solid fuels, liquid fuel in molten salt reactor, solvents for spent nuclear solid fuel in the case of pyro- reprocessing, fusion. Molten salt reactors which are one of the six innovative concepts chosen by the Generation IV international forum may be particularly interesting in the case of waste incinerators or of the thorium cycle. As the neutron balance is very tight, the possibility to quickly extract poisoning fission products is very attractive. The most important questions addressed to demonstrate the scientific feasibility of Molten Salt Reactor will be reviewed.
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