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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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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!
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A wave of new U.S.-U.K. deals ahead of Trump’s state visit
President Trump will arrive in the United Kingdom this week for a state visit that promises to include the usual pomp and ceremony alongside the signing of a landmark new agreement on U.S.-U.K. nuclear collaboration.
Huan Zhang, Shelly X. Li, Michael F. Simpson
Nuclear Technology | Volume 208 | Number 3 | March 2022 | Pages 494-502
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2021.1913031
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This study addressed the problem of measuring the total mass of molten salt in a nuclear system such as a nuclear fuel electrorefiner or a molten salt reactor. In theory, soluble tracers can be added to an unknown amount of salt. Measurement of the tracer concentration after allowing time to homogenize the salt and elemental analysis can be used to calculate the total mass of salt in the system. In this study, the mass of a molten salt mixture of equimolar NaCl-CaCl2 was measured using this method for several sequential additions of the tracer salt. Two different tracers (CeCl3 and KCl) with known mass were used in determining the total mass of NaCl-CaCl2 salt in a crucible at 650°C. By limiting the method to tracer concentrations higher than 1.1 wt%, the average mass determination error was 2.39% and 1.82% for CeCl3 and KCl, respectively. Mass estimations were mostly high by this amount compared to the actually known mass.