China has announced the construction of a nuclear power plant that will be fuelled by liquid fuel based on molten thorium salt. The Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics (SINAP) has been engaged in research in this area since 2011 focusing on liquid fluoride-thorium reactors (LFTRs). The construction of a prototype of a thorium molten salt reactor (TMSR) with a capacity of 2 MW began in September 2018 and was reportedly completed in August 2021. China is seeking to get full intellectual property rights to this technology.
Now China plans to build the world’s first NPP based on molten salt in the Gobi desert. Construction will begin in 2025 with the aim of developing safer and more environmentally friendly nuclear energy. The reactor does not need water for cooling, since it uses liquid salt and carbon dioxide to transfer heat and generate electricity.
In 2022, SINAP received permission from the Ministry of Ecology and Environmental Protection to commission an experimental MTSR. This is the first nuclear molten salt reactor since the United States stopped its molten salt test reactor in 1969. The application for the operation of the experimental reactor was considered in China in June 2023, it was considered to be fully compliant with safety requirements.
The reactor will use fuel enriched in less than 20% U-235, with a thorium reserve of about 50 kg and a conversion factor of about 0.1. FLiBe – a eutectic mixture of lithium fluoride and beryllium fluoride containing 99.95% lithium-7 will be used, and the fuel will consist of uranium tetrafluoride (UF4).
It is expected that the implementation of the project will begin with some refuelling online and removal of gaseous fission products. However, after 5-8 years, all fuel salts will be disposed of for processing and separation of fission products and secondary actinides for storage. The reactor will launch an ongoing process of processing uranium and thorium salts with the operational separation of fission products and secondary actinoids. If this project is successful, China plans to fully commission a 373 MW reactor by 2030.
