Bridging the Gap to Commercial Fuel: A Look Inside Kairos Power’s TRISO Development Lab
Kairos Power is putting a new spin on an advanced fuel form the U.S. Department of Energy has dubbed “the most robust nuclear fuel on Earth.”
Our advanced reactor is one of several designs under development that operate on TRISO fuel particles—ceramic-coated fuel kernels that can’t melt in our fluoride salt-cooled reactor.
TRISO’s performance and safety features are well known in the industry, but its supply chain is limited and unable to meet current commercial demand.
That’s why Kairos Power is collaborating with partners like BWXT and investing in new state-of-the-art facilities like our TRISO Development Lab (TDL) to test, develop, and optimize systems for commercial fuel production.
The TRISO Development Lab
TDL is located at our Manufacturing Development Campus in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It serves as a testbed for equipment designed by Kairos Power and engineered to manufacture TRISO fuel focused on process automation for greater cost certainty.
TDL focuses specifically on refining processes for mass-producing poppyseed-sized TRISO fuel particles. It houses three processing labs and a characterization facility that work in tandem with our co-located Pebble Development Lab, which is piloting automated processes to package TRISO particles into annular graphite fuel pebbles.
Kairos Power’s developmental fuel facilities are aligned with the company’s vertical integration strategy to reduce costs, spur innovation, and lower supply chain risks in the production of commercial fuel.
Kernel Development Lab
The Kernel Development Lab houses our uranium powder-handling, dissolution, and casting equipment to produce TRISO fuel kernels by dissolving depleted uranium powder and forming it into spherical fuel kernels using a sol-gel process.
The facility uses depleted and natural uranium, instead of enriched uranium, to help us demonstrate processing equipment designs in a less restrictive environment, before they are deployed at a commercial fuel fabrication facility using enriched uranium.
This allows us to iterate quickly on equipment designs, including our dissolution system, which was redesigned and deployed in less than two months after initial testing concluded.
We’re also working to combine the multiple production steps of aging, washing, and drying kernels into a custom-designed single process column to streamline automated operations and increase efficiency.
Coater Development Lab
After the kernels are heated and sintered at high temperatures, they are then ready for use in the Coater Development Lab.
Virtually all the systems in the facility were designed and built in-house to improve throughput, reduce maintenance, and lower fuel production costs.
This includes a specialized TRISO coater vessel that continuously applies multiple layers of carbon and ceramic materials to each fuel kernel to prevent the release of radioactive fission products.
The TRISO coater incorporates a rapid maintenance approach that minimizes intracycle downtime and reduces the frequency of maintenance cycles to achieve high levels of operator protection. The lab is also equipped with a custom soot extraction system that significantly decreases downtime and improves system utilization.
Waste Management Lab
In addition to manufacturing TRISO particles, TDL is pioneering new ways to safely manage the gaseous, liquid, and solid waste streams resulting from these processes. This includes the proper disposal of all carbon, graphite, and silicon byproducts, in addition to depleted and natural uranium material.
TDL houses a radiation enclosure with filtered ventilation and other controls to protect the health and safety of our workers and the environment. All radioactive byproducts generated at the facility are safely managed as low-level waste under the supervision of resident radiation safety officers and technicians to ensure we meet strict environmental, state, and nuclear safeguard standards.
Our Waste Management Lab is designed to reduce waste volumes and features an innovative system that recovers and recycles high-cost materials, which are typically discarded after a single use. By recovering and reusing the materials several times, we can improve operational efficiency and long-term economics for future commercial fuel fabrication facilities while maintaining the highest safety standards.
Fuels Characterization Laboratory
Materials processed through the Kernel, Coater, and Waste Management labs are analyzed in our Fuel Characterization Lab to quickly and cost-effectively evaluate fuel particle performance potential and inform future process improvements across the TDL. The lab also verifies the removal of all uranium-based material from TDL waste streams to ensure it is properly disposed of according to state standards.
Collaboration with BWXT
TDL also serves as a key collaboration point between Kairos Power and BWXT—the nation’s most experienced TRISO fuel manufacturer.
The two teams are working together at TDL to optimize manufacturing and automation processes to lower the costs of TRISO fuel production. The two companies are also exploring opportunities to collaborate on a future commercial-scale TRISO fuel fabrication facility, which would incorporate lessons learned from the systems being validated at TDL.
The partnership combines more than 20 years of BWXT’s operational experience in nuclear fuel manufacturing with Kairos Power’s ability to perform rapid iteration cycles and established expertise in producing the annular pebble fuel form.
BWXT is currently reviewing the design, along with operational and safety practices to ensure the systems being developed at TDL are aligned with future commercial manufacturing requirements.
The lessons learned from this effort will refine our processes at TDL to help create a scalable, commercially viable TRISO fuel supply for Kairos Power reactors and the broader advanced reactor industry.
