Nuclear reactors fueled and/or cooled by molten salt are currently the subject of great interest from industry for the next generation of nuclear power generation. The U.S. Department of Energy has responded by stepping up its support of molten salt reactor (MSR) research at national laboratories, universities, and companies. But the question needs to be asked as to whether the right projects are being funded. The MSR is truly a multi-science system in which chemistry/chemical engineering principles are at least as important as are nuclear engineering principles. This presentation will present such principles that are essential to understanding, designing, and controlling molten salt reactors--including electrochemistry, chemical reaction and phase thermodynamics, separation processes, and mass transfer. Problems that are currently being approached on a phenomenological basis can be better understood by assembling the fundamental principles. Corrosion of metal alloys in molten salts, for example, can be understood in terms of salt redox potential, metal surface composition, and corrosion product solubility. A number of fundamental research projects are recommended, including development of thermodynamic property databases and predictive models, mechanistic and predictive study of soluble metal based redox control, study of electrochemistry of complex molten salt mixtures, and study of speciation of metal cations with impurity anions such as O<sup>2-</sup> and OH<sup>-</sup>. Examples of recent progress in molten salt research will be provided with recommendations on further research.

Basic molten salt research needs to support development of liquid fueled generation-IV nuclear reactors

2019 Fall National Meeting

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