Tirupati to open 12,000 tpa Madagascan graphite mine in 2015

• Autores: Laura Syrett
• Localización: Industrial Minerals, ISSN 0019-8544, Nº. 568, 2015 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Enero)
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • [Jon Hykawy] explained how the pebble bed modular reactor (PBMR) design, which uses fuel 'pebbles' composed of a highly pure, nuclear grade graphite matrix hosting ceramic-coated fuel pellets as well as a graphite-lined reactor core, has been pursued for decades as a safer and more efficient alternative to conventional models.

    Hykawy pointed to calculations by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which suggest that an 110 MWe PBMR, based on MIT's own design, requires 80 tonnes of graphite in the form of uranium-flecked pebbles; 28 tonnes of graphite as pure pebbles for the core neutron reflector; and 426 tonnes of solid graphite in the reactor's outer reflector shield.

    "So the overall winner for PBMR is probably going to be synthetic graphite," he said, but added that two Canadian natural graphite companies - Zenyatta Ventures, which owns the Albany graphite deposit in Ontario and Canada Carbon, which owns the Miller property in Quebec - have demonstrated the ability to produce the required purity, using a caustic bake process on the hydrothermal lump/vein-type ores yielded by the two deposits.