A report by Dr Victor Morokhovskyi, representative of Framatome GmbH in KTG Section SOUTH

The lecture event "Dual Fluid Reactor" with around 130 participants took place on Wednesday, 22 May 2019 in the evening at Framatome GmbH in Erlangen. The speakers, Dipl.-Phys. Jan-Christian Lewitz, Managing Director of LTZ-Consulting GmbH & Advisory Board of the Institut für Festkörper-Kernphysik gGmbH and Dr Armin Huke, Managing Director of the Institut für Festkörper-Kernphysik gGmbH, were introduced by Dr Morokhovskyi, representative of Framatome GmbH on the Board of the Southern Section. The presentation gave a very good overview of the structure, basic physical principles and possible applications of the revolutionary Dual Fluid Reactor (DFR) concept.

The concept draws on ideas from various advanced reactors developed in the 1950s to 1970s and combines them with each other. In this concept, both the fissile material and the coolant are in liquid form during operation. This rules out the possibility of a core meltdown accident. The very high neutron energies achieved by the dual fluid principle enable the transmutation of both the long-lived actinides and the fission products. A geological repository is no longer required.

At an operating temperature of 1,000°C, significantly higher efficiencies are achieved than with an LWR. This also opens up further possibilities, such as thermochemical hydrogen production or in the petrochemical industry.

The one-hour presentation was followed by a lively discussion in which Mr Lewitz and Mr Huke explained further details.

The SOUTH section would like to thank Mr Lewitz and Mr Huke and others involved for their contributions to this very successful event.

You can find the slides of the presentation here: DRF-Handout Part 1 and Part 2

An article on the DFR entitled "The Dual Fluid Reactor - An Innovative Fast Nuclear Reactor Concept with High Efficiency and Total Burnup" was published in atw 03/2021.

Mr Dipl.-Phys. Jan-Christian Lewitz, Managing Director LTZ-Consulting GmbH & Member of the Advisory Board of the Institute for Solid State Nuclear Physics gGmbH