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The SALT Research Group

UC Berkeley Nuclear Engineering Department

Projects

The SALT Group has many different projects being pursued at this time. Please read the list of projects below and click on the title to learn more about the research being done.

A. We are part of the following multi-institute research consortia:

  1. ​Bridging the gap between experiments and modeling to improve design of molten salt reactors NEUP IRP. Funding agency: NEUP. 2022-2025.
  2. Reduction, Mitigation, and Disposal Strategies for the Graphite Waste of High Temperature Reactors​ NEUP IRP. Funding agency: NEUP. 2022-2025.
  3. UPWARDS: Universal Performance Criteria and Canister for Advanced Reactor Waste Form Acceptance in Borehole and Mined Repositories Considering Design Safety Funded by: DOE ArpaE. 2022-2025.
  4. NSSC: Nuclear Science and Security Consortium. Funded by: NNSA. 2021-2026.
  5. MINES: The Science of Direct MINeral to Energy Storage Synthesis. Funded by: DOE BES Critical Minerals and Materials. 2022-2026.
  6. FUTURE: The Fundamental Understanding of Transport Under Reactor Extremes. Funded by: DOE BES Materials Science and Engineering. 2022-2026.
  7. Molten Salt Loop for the MIT Reactor NEUP IRP. Funded by: NEUP. 2020-2023.
  8. Artificial Intelligence Institute for Advances in Optimization (AI4OPT). Funded by: NSF. 2021-2026.

B. Other projects that are not part of large research consortia:

  1. High Temperature Molten Salt Studies. Funded by: France-Berkeley Fund. 2021-2022. Collaborators: Sylvie Delpech (Université Paris, Orsay). Topics: molten salt electrochemistry, reference electrode development.
  2. Probing Speciation of Light Elements in Molten Salts by Electrochemistry, High Temperature Liquid NMR, and Neutron Diffraction. Funded by: DOE NEUP. 2021-2024. Collaborators: B. Kaykovich (MIT), S. Vogel (LANL), M. Asta (UCB), I. Farnan (University of Cambridge).
  3. High Temperature Molten Salt Reactor Pump Component Development and Testing. Funded by: DOE NEUP. 2021-2024. Collaborators: M. Anderson (UW, lead PI), N. Zweibaum (Kairos Power), J. Hensel (Powdermet), K. Robb (ORNL). Topics: tribology in molten salt, sensors for pump health monitoring.
  4. ThorCon Loop Corrosion Studies. Funded by: Thorcon Power. Topics: salt properties, corrosion performance of SS316H in a molten salt loop.
  5. Thermodynamics Textbook: Creating Culturally and Historically Diverse Examples. Funded by: UC Berkeley College of Engineering Advancing Faculty Diversity in Berkeley Engineering.
  6. Graphite and Tritium Studies in Molten Fluoride Salts
  7. Molten Salt Round Robin 1.0