Molten salt reactor (MSR) experiments assessed thorium's feasibility, using thorium(IV) fluoride dissolved in a molten salt fluid that eliminated the need to fabricate fuel elements. Īt Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the 1960s, the Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment used 233Īs the fissile fuel in an experiment to demonstrate a part of the Molten Salt Breeder Reactor that was designed to operate on the thorium fuel cycle. In the twenty-first century thorium's claimed potential for improving proliferation resistance and waste characteristics led to renewed interest in the thorium fuel cycle. A notable exception was India's three-stage nuclear power programme. However, for most countries uranium was relatively abundant and research in thorium fuel cycles waned. It was envisioned that as uranium reserves were depleted, thorium would supplement uranium as a fertile material. Ĭoncerns about the limits of worldwide uranium resources motivated initial interest in the thorium fuel cycle. The thorium fuel cycle has several potential advantages over a uranium fuel cycle, including thorium's greater abundance, superior physical and nuclear properties, reduced plutonium and actinide production, and better resistance to nuclear weapons proliferation when used in a traditional light water reactor though not in a molten salt reactor. Depending on the design of the reactor and fuel cycle, the generated 233Įither fissions in situ or is chemically separated from the used nuclear fuel and formed into new nuclear fuel. This parallels the process in uranium breeder reactors whereby fertile 238 Additional fissile material or another neutron source is necessary to initiate the fuel cycle. ), which are insufficient to initiate a nuclear chain reaction. Unlike natural uranium, natural thorium contains only trace amounts of fissile material (such as 231 Is transmuted into the fissile artificial uranium isotope 233 The thorium fuel cycle is a nuclear fuel cycle that uses an isotope of thorium, 232
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