Hence, engineers typically use a liquid metal such as
sodium as a coolant and heat transporter.
Then there is the question mark over the use of highly reactive
sodium as the coolant.
GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy is developing the Power Reactor Innovative Small Modular (PRISM) reactor, which uses liquid
sodium as a coolant.
«What it does is it takes different sorts of fuel materials such as plutonium or used nuclear fuel, it casts that into a metallic fuel, it puts it in a reactor that has liquid
sodium as a coolant — and if you have liquid
sodium as a coolant then the energies of the neutrons are higher so you can use a different fuel source.
Not exact matches
Instead of water, liquid
sodium is typically used
as a
coolant because the
sodium atoms are so much larger and heavier than neutrons that when they collide the neutrons simply ricochet off the
sodium atom - much a like a small bullet ricocheting off a thick plate metal.
Unlike the current generation of light - water nuclear reactors, PRISM uses metallic fuel, such
as an alloy of zirconium, uranium, and plutonium, and PRISM's fuel rods sit in a bath of a liquid metal —
sodium — at atmospheric pressure, which ensures that the transfer of heat from the metal fuel to the liquid
sodium coolant is extremely efficient.