Abstract
Nuclear Power today is in stagnation with a fleet of 440 operational units, due to many drawback factors, as economics, safety, controllability and response time, security and waste management, which all together act as a deterrent to new reactor construction. If the present trend is followed, together with aging of many nuclear plants, by 2040 there will remain less than half of the actual reactors in operation, representing an accelerated decay of the industry. The idea of renaissance of nuclear power is more frequent, but this is not possible without the use of novel materials, based on nano-engineered structures. It is well known that Damascus swords were not possible without the use of Damascus steel, and so the next nuclear technology is not possible without the use of novel micro-nano nuclear materials, which finally dictates the performances of the nuclear structures built with them. As a first approach to modern technology, since 1980s, five types of nuclear materials, able to bring a leap forward in nuclear technology have been identified and studied, which are: 1) Micro-hetero structures able to deal with fission products, that use fission reaction kinematics to self-separate fission products from the nuclear fuel, generically called “Cer-Liq-Mesh”, because simply it consists of a ceramic material stabilized on an elastic mesh or felt, immersed into a drain liquid. This improves the radiation damage, fuel burnup, fission products separation, and specific power density. 2) Nano-Beaded-Hetero-Structures that are using the nano-cluster specific mechanisms to accelerate separation of the transmutation products and place them into a drain liquid, which improves the separation of minor actinides, and radioisotopes production. 3) Nano-hetero structures for direct nuclear energy conversion into electricity, that are resembling a supercapacitor, charged by the moving nuclear particles, and discharges delivering electricity, where the structure is made of repetitive conductive and insulating layers, generically known as “CIci”, some of the variants creating hyperbolic metamaterials, that may deliver electricity and radiation. Using these structures, one may eliminate the thermos-mechanical stage from the actual nuclear-thermo-mechano-electric energy conversion cycle, reducing it at nuclear-electric only and reducing the size of nuclear-electric plant by 90%, creating a fission battery. 4) Radiation damage self-repairing materials made of a “fractal”, multi-material interlaced structure that maintains its properties constant independent of radiation dose. These materials will be used for cladding and structures allowing a near-perfect burning, using breed & burn technology. 5) Radiation guiding structures that are using nano-structures to trap and guide radiation on desired controllable path being used for control systems assuring a micro-second response time, and light shielding allowing the creation of mobile structures.
Highlights
The Nuclear power as we know it today is a mature technology developed on the basis of 1950s materials, and the difficulties it encounters are deeply embedded in the material performances it uses, which were developed asymptotically until it reached near maximum performances, where weight of new improvements is minimal
It is well known that Damascus swords were not possible without the use of Damascus steel, and so the nuclear technology is not possible without the use of novel micro-nano nuclear materials, which dictates the performances of the nuclear structures built with them
As a first approach to modern technology, since 1980s, five types of nuclear materials, able to bring a leap forward in nuclear technology have been identified and studied, which are: 1) Micro-hetero structures able to deal with fission products, that use fission reaction kinematics to self-separate fission products from the nuclear fuel, generically called “Cer-Liq-Mesh”, because it consists of a ceramic material stabilized on an elastic mesh or felt, immersed into a drain liquid
Summary
The Nuclear power as we know it today is a mature technology developed on the basis of 1950s materials, and the difficulties it encounters are deeply embedded in the material performances it uses, which were developed asymptotically until it reached near maximum performances, where weight of new improvements is minimal. One of the problems is the accelerated degradation of nuclear fuel under the action of fission products, “0” in Figure 1, transmutation products and radiation inside the active zone, corroborated with improper temperature distribution and mechanical stress induced during operation, that seems it cannot be solved properly using the actual materials Another problem was the production of minor actinides, “4”, that remain inside used fuel, problem solved in part by breed & burn regimes, but we will intend to have them together with other isotopes for other applications and their extraction from the present used fuel is difficult. Nuclear fuel burnup and breed&burn procedures are limited by the structural materials and cladding radiation damage low robustness, requiring periodical recladding and fuel refurbishment, that makes the process more complex and unpractical, “1” All these problems and few more may be solved by novel developed nuclear materials based on engineered micro-nano-heterogenous structures, which creates the basis for a real, reliable and credible nuclear renaissance
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