Full video here: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/pNl7oMym2bCmhYE.html

Couldn’t you also electrically energize the metal parts to give back free electrons when needed? This is how ship hulls prevent rusting at sea

Thanks, I don't think corrosion is really the problem. Molten salt has been used in industry for years for heat capture, storage and transmission. A good example are solar thermal generators. The main issue in MSRs is the presence of the fuel compounds entrained in the salt and the neutron flux around the reactive part of the core that could alter the chemistry. Weinberg investigated these issues with the 1960s MSR experiment at Oakridge and found solutions to most of them. Reportedly the current Chinese development MSRs designed to follow on the Oakridge experiment, have found no real problems with corrosion but are tweaking the Hastalloy n steel by adding a slightly higher proportion of nickel. The main issue why MSRs didn't progress was the arguments between Weinberg and Rickover. Weinberg was into high temperature gas cooled Brayton cycle (think small light gas turbines). His activities had been championed by the USAF. Rickover was a live steam Rankine cycle man (think large heavy steam turbines). He was sponsored by the USN. The USAF lost interest and Weinberg his funding. Rickover gained control over the funding pot, had his rival, Weinberg, fired and the MSR program closed. Thirty years on, Oakridge was reportedly on the verge of dumping all their MSR documentation (blue prints design notes etc,) when during a period of rapprochement, visiting Chinese engineers asked for and were given copies of the MSR documentation. The rest is history, China currently has two experimental MSRs operational and is planning to move on to an engineering prototype shortly. Their vision is pretty much that of Weinberg, small high temperature gas cooled reactors for use in remote regions without access to cooling water. Think abundant power for the third world. Belatedly the US is trying to catch up and funding has recently been provided for an developmental MSR in Texas.

We've had Hastelloy N, a nickel alloy since the '50's. Real reason tech hasn't been embraced is MSR's don't make fissile material 4 bombs

Apart from the purely technical, one reason these are not everywhere is LFTR reactors are proliferation resistant & cannot be used to make nulclear weapons. Thus governments cannot get their cut of that sweet sweet clean plutonium.

Finally! Someone who knows the major issue. Keeping oxygen/water out of salt is an almost insurmountable problem as they have an affinity for both.

In college I built the gas blanket for a molten salt test system. Very fun stuff!

Corrosion is not just a reaction with oxygen. It is just an undesirable chemical reaction for a container/vessel/tube

This is highly valuable information, yet extremely niche to my interests! I have an amateur passion for nuclear science, specifically the workings of a reactor; more specifically Soviet nuclear reaction systems.

Guy on KZfaq years ago was claiming they were a viable alternative to regular nuclear power. Well done for educating us.

What's the cost though to make thee salt ultra pure?..

Why don't just use a ceramic coating to avoid this issue?

Brilliant! These are some hardworking personnel to figure this out!

Might sound simplistic, but would a glass or ceramic lined pipes or reactor container be suitable to prevent corrosion.

Neutron flux is another huge issue. And recycling the expensive refined chemicals that are used to moderate the reaction is another huge issue. That being said, there was a button of issues with fast breeder uranium reactors too.. but we needed them for the war effort and money was no object so we figured it out.

5 times more electricity is needed to replace fossil fuels. 40,000 km of grid is needed for every 1gW of electricity, the generation plant is dirt cheap compared to the grid it needs. $1million per km. Big open country or crowded population centre streets. Nobody talks about the grid constraints to more electricity generation.

Rust only occurs with iron because rust is specifically iron oxide. Corrusion doesn't mean rust. Rust is just how iron corrodes from reacting to oxygen. The green stuff on copper is corrosion too but it actually forms a protective layer. We also have a ton of non corrosive metals that are cheap and used already everyday.

They ran the MSRE in Oak Ridge National Laboratory from 1965 to 1969 and they found the corrosion to be negligible. Now that was over 50 years ago and metallurgy and industrial processes have seen quite some enhancements. In the end the question as with all nuclear plants is financial viability over the complete runtime.

Only iron rusts. Others it would be called oxidation

What is the issue with non-metal refractory? Like silica? It's not that expensive is it?

There is a gradual contamination of the molten salt in reactors that requires contaminant separation and/or purification.

Use fusion tech to keep the salt way But either just use elec directly form the background

I very much believe in LFTR technology . Thank you for helping to tell people about it.

It's a matter of if the corrosion is enough that maintenance replacement of components are not practical. The Oakridge experimental reactor ran for years and true corrosion was found on it's pipes, proponents of MSR say that the pipes lasted long enough to be practical whereas objectors just point and say "see corrosion". Note that the metals used in the Oakridge reactor could probably be improved upon by comparing multiple alloys versus the corrosion so a production reactor would likely be far more resistant. We know of corrosion on cars because the car still lasts long enough to be useful and this is true of all metal objects. At this time, the concerns about corrosion with MSR is more the objectors being desperate to find an argument against MSR then anything else. Of course metal corrodes, the question is does it corrode enough, fast enough, and with the one example of a working experimental MSR, the alloys chosen without a comparison study for corrosion still proved sufficient for years of use and even replacing the pipes on a conservative basis as in for the number of years the Oakridge MSR ran, would still make the MSR practical.

The problem with LFTR reactors is the byproducts can't be used for bombs

More things can oxidize and corrode. Rust is an English word (from dutch for red) that refers to the reddish or yellowish flaky iron oxide. Rust is most typically hydrated Fe2O3, but can be other things like Fe3O4 and FeCl3. Not other metals. It also has other meanings from analogy. Like decay, loss of a skill... but rust is not aluminum oxide, cooper oxide etc. may be correction but not rust.

Such a self-evident solution.

So expensive fuel, maintenance and a cheap boiler? Sign me up 😂

I like the fact that a Danish company is solving a nuclear reactor problem even though we’ve never had or currently have (and probably never will) a nuclear power station

An idea of corrosion's effect is this would be on the internal fusion levels (natural heat exchanges that fuse matter, like rocks - over time) of matter used as containers. Something maybe like the dissipation of a resistor using a current to provide a voltage to its area. Thus matter's fusion could be made to bond or break up a mass. And there is the fact of in chemistry any process could normally be made a reversed process. And don't overlook, fusion leads to matter building radiation at times.

Cars don’t rust so much if you use positive ground.

Have all the possible reactions been taken into account? Radiolysis and transmutation of hull materials by high neutron densities might also cause trouble.

No. Only iron can rust. Many metals can corrode but only iron can rust

A very theatrically presented, well-known fact.

Has anyone tried kindly asking the salt to stop corroding our equipment?

Nixon shut down the one that we had working. The reason for reactors in the first place was for nuclear weapons.

Why don't they just use ceramic inner then a composite

I really question the “can’t corrode without moisture thing.” Steel just really hates chloride and sulfate ions which will still be present.

Add in some high temp magnetic fluid and make it float in the tubes

I heard the USSR bricked a brand new molten salt reactor by letting the salt freeze.

No, those reactors aren't everywhere because priority in construction and regulatory schemes was given to reactors that produced and used material or materials similar to those used in nuclear weapons and military power reactors, because that's what industry was geared for.

As long as you exclude oxygen and hydrogen molten salts are usually quite inert to less reactive metals. The big issue is that a reactor creates a spectrum of elements and these can make very corrosive substances, particularly iodine 131, tritium and sulfur 32 are the most troublesome ones.

There is also a more important reason, you can't make bombs from the waste.

The molten salt reactor in my backyard had a partial meltdown but hopefully the tech has improved since then

Rust isn't corrosion though it's oxidation of metals

Essentially it is a materials problem and not a conceptual one. If everyone thought like you we would still be in the stone age because everyone would say, the material is too weak we should just give up. Thankfully we have people who know the solution is correct, you just need a way of implementing it.

I would have thought that at the temperature of a molten salt (hundreds of degrees), moisture would not be an issue.

Molten salt definitely corrodes in the absence of oxygen. Oxoacitity is just one component of molten salt corrosion (albeit a major one). Even a pure salt can corrode by electrochemical mechanisms or by dissolving the constiuents of its container. Additonally, the variation of solubility with respect to temperature can lead to salt buildup in the colder parts of flowing loops (similar to geothermal heat extraction).

Break out the old Corningwear! It is time to build a nuclear reactor from bromated glass.

A question: How do you have water in 1.5k Celsius hot salt? The O2 is a much bigger threat, btw. The corrosion in the reactor is from fluoride because they use fluoride salts. But else, it's a good video

Ceramic coatings have entered the chat

Salt reactors? Like... taste buds?

Soooo why aren't we using them. Because of the green weeneys

Makes sense. An 'either or' question? Flushing out O2, regardless. An inert gas of some sort?

Given that Copenhagen Atomic has solved the problem "then if they are so great then why arent they everywhere?"

There's gotta be something simple they can use.

currosive oxidizer going through pipes is the issue, the pipes are sensitive to the salts currosion and will need to be replaced due to impurities.

Something to think about. You can’t make weapons grade uranium with it

Huh, I'd have just lined everything with gold

How is that waste comparable to substances that make surrounding areas uninhabitable for extended periods of time?

Has nobody heard of Thorium reactors. After all the first reactor invented by mankind was a Thorium unit.

That seems like a fairly sinple process. I would heat up the salt beyond the point where water boils (100 to 130 degrees Celsius. ) Then I would maintain the salt at this temperature for about an 15 minutes. Any moisture in the salt would have evaporated out of the salt. Then I would let the salt cool in a sealed container filled with Argon ( An inert gas that is denser than Oxygen) This would prevent any Oxygen from entering the salt again as the Argon would displace it. Once the salt is cooled and vaccum sealed, it is clean and dry and ready for the reactor.

So why not build the molten salt reactor with incorporated sacrificial annodes. This would halt the rust problem so long as the deterorating/rusting annodes are replaced with regularity.

The moisture is removed by the temperature and circulation of the molten salt. The ability of most salts to retain oxygen in molten form is also absurdly small. This guy is inventing a problem that never was. . The spherical container of the first molten salt reactor at oak ridge was found to be pristine upon decomissioning.

You should move subtitles up, they are covered by subscribe button on mobile phones

Because generals wanted breader reactor for bombs. American reactors were never about power that was a nice addition, just bombs.

Why not use a SiC or a cerrakote. Yea packing it Ina tube and heating it would draw out moisture but it seems like there are plenty of things that are meant to be anti corrosive and withstand high heat

I nearly climbed paritutu recently, infact, many times over the years.

It depends on the salt that you use

So , its the water and oxygen in salt thats causing the problem, not salt. Salt is simply being the conductor in their presence.

The problem is the NRC

Oakridge lab fixed the corrosion problem the program was defunded the program to fund fast light water reactors in California to fund jobs

Does the extra energy to keep the salt liquid, relative to water, lower the energy yield of the reactor?

Is that really the only reason for corrosion? I'm not a chemist, but anyone who took HS chemistry probably saw a vivid demo of Na's reactivity and, while each sodium ion is paired with a chlorine ion, those formulas we had to write included arrows pointing right and left, reminding that the reaction goes both ways. Would the sodium ions not occasionally bond with the metal in the pipes (unless the expensive exotic materials alluded to in the clip were ysed)?

When are we going to stop debating the salt reactors and start using them

The reason why molten salt reactors aren't "every where" is mostly due to bureaucracy.

The salt is uncut.

Without looking into it more .. wouldn't some kind of sacrificial material that can be filtered out(aka sink to the bottom in a specialized tank with less turbulences etc) be a good way to remove all moisture and oxygen ? ..

Ceramic and graphite are not expensive. It has to be a profit issue. Government stops things that threaten their donors profit. It's corruption

We wouldn't have that problem if there was no life on earth.

Cause the word nuclear has been vilified in the public so much, to just mention invokes a hostile reaction…

Rust on iron😂 brother in Christ the rust IS iron

Line the reactor vessel with PTFE

I had no idea salt can be melted and the temperature is a ridiculous 800⁰C or 1400⁰F to melt it

So, we're going to rely on a most likely highly complex and very expensive system to work perfectly to keep things in check. Please tell me we're going to have backups for the backups.

TEXASMUDNECK SAY It depends on the type of Salt !!!! Tell IT ALL,TELLIT RIGHT ✅️ OR DON'T TELL IT.

Also politics, high pressure water reactor researchers were friends with kennedy from university

Could they not seal the reactor systems in an inert gas environment? Like a giant TIG welding enclosure?

Still didn't answer the question. If the big problem has a simple solution.....why aren't they used everywhere?

Why not keeping in ceramic. Did they ever thought about that -?

I completely agree, this is a really easy renewable energy source.

Natrium sodium fast reactor

You also can't make bombs out of the Waste, you can only make power this Reactor can use Waste to fuel its Thorium reaction you need a Nickle Chromium metal to house the reactor

Why not just connect blocks of metal with a lower reduction potential

No, it's because the salt reactors can't be used to make bomb fuel.

Isn't that purification also expensive and takes energy? The total loss is probably less than the other solutions though. That is until there's a purity issue and something needs to be replaced.

Only iron can rust. Other elements corrode. Rust is the name given to corroded iron.

And yet there is not one molten salt reactor operational in the world!

China has been running one for four years now in the Gobi desert where cooling water is not available

The reason Politicians want to feel important They need big scary problems to heroically save people from Actual solutions to problems that don't come with strings, price tags, votes, and bondage really mess with politicians social health Nuclear Reactors are just too good at their job They had to go It was reactors or politicians And we chose politicians We should be really proud 😂