"This seven gram sample is $70,000..." What? Yes that's right. Last Wednesday in my Processing of Rare Earth Metals class we had a guest speaker from a beryllium processing company. The lecture blew me away! Beryllium is such an amazing element with many uses in the modern world ranging from nuclear reactors to satellites.
After that class got me so interested in the many uses of beryllium (and also talks from my nuclear energy class on beryllium for fusion reactors) I began to do a little research on the element. My research led me to an article from World Nuclear News about an ongoing research project between Canadian company IBC Advanced Alloys, Purdue University, and Texas Engineering Experiment Station. The project is a study of the possibility of using beryllium oxide fuels for both current and future nuclear reactors.
I'd like to discuss some of the findings from their research, but remember this is research and not commercially applied technology. According to IBC, the use of beryllium oxides with uranium oxide as fuel for nuclear reactors improves the longevity, efficiency, and how safe the actual process is. These benefits are most likely due to the increase in thermal conductivity of the fuel by the addition of the beryllium oxide (uranium dioxide has a very low thermal conductivity). Turns out beryllium oxide does not react with uranium dioxide until temperatures of about 21,000 degrees Celsius.
So they have made a great discovery, but their challenge now lies in coming up with an economically viable method for combining the two oxides to produce fuel. They are currently working on a co-sintering method that would result in a granules of uranium dioxide completely surround by beryllium oxide, which would result in production of the fuel by means of small pellets.
If this proves to be as good as it sounds it could be great news for the nuclear industry. If we could come up with a way to make the same fuel we already use last a little longer...that would mean less radioactive waste. And less radioactive waste is what everyone has been asking for.
Thanks for distinguishing between research and application in your post. I think industry advocates would do better to be so careful in all of their rhetoric--it's very easy for the public to get confused about what is actually functioning in existing nuclear power plants and theoretical possibilities.
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