What would you use to keep next-generation nuclear reactors cool? If you said highly reactive molten sodium, take a bow
By Michael Moyer
Posted 02.16.2008 at 4:14 pm
It's going to be at least another two decades before any commercial models are built, but researchers are at work designing the Generation IV nuclear reactors. Unlike the generation II and III models now in use that use water to cool and control the fission (preventing runaway reactions, subsequent meltdowns and the environmental apocalypse that would result), the leading contender for cooling material for the Gen IV reactors is molten sodium. Not sodium chloride (plain, unreactive table salt), but sodium metal.
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