The National Regulatory Commission (NRC) has issued the university a construction permit to build a liquid-fueled molten salt reactor (Natura MSR-1), which makes it the first university reactor approved in more than 30 years and the first reactor licensed by the NRC in American history. 

Dr. Kim Pamplin, NEXT Lab director of chemistry, said the reactor is not designed to produce power, but instead to demonstrate the safe operation of the technology. 

“In a few years after we have built and began to operate this reactor and have some data to demonstrate that it operates safely,” said Pamplin, professor of chemistry and biochemistry. “Then, the data from this reactor can be used by Natura Resources, who is our sponsoring organization, that they intend to build a commercial reactor.”

Pamplin said one of the biggest differences between this reactor and the available commercial reactors is that commercial reactors use water to carry heat away from the core of the reactor over to a facility that generates electricity. In the Natura MSR-1, the water is replaced with molten salt. 

“​​Commercial reactors operate around 300 degrees Celsius, and the molten salt reactor will operate around 600 degrees Celsius,” Pamplin said. “That allows the reactor to be much, much more efficient in the conversion of energy into electricity.”

Pamplin said the molten salt reactor also prevents significant dangers of a commercial reactor such as poking a hole in the pressurized water reactor system, which causes the 300 degrees Celsius water to leak out.

“That’s one of the things that happened in the Fukushima accident several years ago, and that would never happen with our reactor, because if you poke a hole in a molten salt reactor, the salt just drips down onto the floor and freezes,” Pamplin said. “It doesn’t flash to become a vapor and then spread around the world.”

The Natura MSR-1 (Photo courtesy of Natura Resources)

Natura Resources, an advanced nuclear development company, partnered with the NEXT Lab, Texas A&M University, The University of Texas at Austin and Georgia Institute of Technology to work on the reactor. 

The ACU team working on the reactor includes undergraduate students in engineering, physics, chemistry, biology and computer science majors. Dr. Phil Schubert, president of the university, said the NEXT Lab offers an incredible opportunity for these students to get hands-on experience. 

“It’s not an overstatement to say, students who are working on this project are getting experience that they couldn’t get anywhere else in the country,” Schubert said. “We are the only project currently in the U.S. that has a construction permit that’s been issued for a liquid-fueled molten salt reactor, and so they are pioneering new territory.”

Schubert said a long investment of time and energy has gone into this project. He said the university’s next steps will be building the reactor and submitting an operating application license. 

“We also need the NRC’S approval once it’s built to turn it on and operate it,” Schubert said. “That’s a separate process, and we will begin immediately putting the application together for that approval, which will come down the road once we get closer to the end of construction.”

A view of the research bay in the Dillard Science and Engineering Research Center at Abilene Christian University. (Photo courtesy of Jeremy Enlow)

Pamplin said the operating license will be a similar process to the construction license application, and it will undergo a completely new review. He said this will be submitted in early 2025, which will be likely followed by another 2-year process of review. 

“By the end of this year or early next year, we will have a completed engineering design for this reactor, which now with our construction permit, we can begin to build,” Pamplin said. “So while the NRC is considering our operating license application, we will be building the reactor.”

Schubert said that once the reactor is operational, the goal is for Natura to take ACU’s research and use it to support societal needs locally, domestically and internationally. 

“I would hope that this paves the way for changing the standard of living for populations all around the world,” Schubert said, “and that we would be kind of at the center of the spearhead, if you will, of making that happen.”