ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 8–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
Latest Magazine Issues
Oct 2025
Jul 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
November 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
NextEra and Google ink a deal to restart Duane Arnold
A day anticipated by many across the nuclear community has finally arrived: NextEra Energy has officially announced its plans to restart Iowa’s only nuclear power plant, the Duane Arnold Energy Center.
Bahman Zohuri, Stephen Lam, Charles Forsberg
Nuclear Technology | Volume 206 | Number 11 | November 2020 | Pages 1642-1658
Critical Review | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2019.1681222
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The fluoride-salt-cooled high-temperature reactor and some proposed fusion reactors use clean fluoride salts as reactor coolants that have melting points above 450°C and generate tritium. Tritium diffuses through most hot metals, thus methods to capture tritium and prevent its release to the environment are required. Molten salt reactors (MSRs) use fluoride or chloride salts with high melting points where the fuel is dissolved in the coolant. MSR systems produce volatile fission products (Xe, Kr, etc.) and some produce significant tritium. We examine the use of heat exchangers with multiple heat pipes for salt-cooled fission and fusion systems that serve four functions: (1) transfer heat from primary coolant to power cycle, secondary loop, or environment; (2) provide the safety function of a secondary loop by isolating the reactor salt coolant from the high-pressure power cycle; (3) stop heat transfer if the reactor coolant approaches its freezing point to prevent blockage of the primary loop; and (4) block tritium escape to the environment with recovery of the tritium. Each of these capabilities in some form has been demonstrated in a heat pipe system, but not all the functions have been demonstrated in a single system because there has been no need for all of these capabilities in a single system. We review the status of heat pipe technology and the limits of heat pipe technology as the starting points for decisions on the development of such heat pipe systems.