Arc Reactor Design
Enrique Vasquez
At Cambridge Reactor Design, we facilitate both experienced and new users interested in utilising flow chemistry. We design and build a range of flow chemistry equipment, from laboratory size systems to production scale rigs.
All of our designs and much of our production work is carried out in house. This means that we control quality. It also means that we can meet end user expectations by carrying our customisation work when needed.
Why Batch? A stirred tank batch reactor is the most widely used reactor type both in the laboratory and industry. Batch reactors may be preferred for small-scale production of high priced products, particularly if many sequential operations are employed to obtain high product yields. Batch reactors also may be justified when multiple, low volume products are produced in the same equipment or when continuous flow is difficult, as it is with highly viscous or sticky solids-laden liquids. Data obtained in batch reactors can be well defined and used to predict performance of larger scale, continuous-flow reactors.
Our check valves offer practical solutions for applications where space is at a premium and reliability is essential. Our miniature check valves are ideal for gas or liquid applications. They are used in every industry. The materials in our check valves provide improved corrosion resistance and make them a superior alternative to comparable plastic valves.
Some problems demand unique solutions and this means a team of highly specialised engineers. We have the best! Working with the latest software tools, we have developed platforms to solve some of the most demanding chemistry problems. Looking to the future, we take pride in pioneering new products that challenge current production methods. As we are involved in all aspects of our operation, including on-site work, we can draw on direct experience to deliver accurate, reliable and cost efficient designs - every time.
The Polar Bear is one of nicest things weve ever made. Its a compact platform that heat and cools from -40C up to 150C. I describe it as being like a washer dryer - does both! Ours is the size of a shoebox.
Watch the video to see why chemists love it
Cambridge Reactor Design form part of the Advanced Manufacturing Supply Chain Initiative (AMSCI) ReMediES consortium, a project that has been awarded 11 m of government funding. The overall aim of the consortium is to address the inefficiencies in the pharmaceutical supply chain and involves 22 organisations ranging from Universities to SMEs and large multinationals.
Cambridge Reactor Design continues to win orders and our Polar Bear Plus is now available in the US. Our aim is to add every conceivable option to this versatile platform -check out our new microsite. If you haven't see yours then Contact Us!
Cambridge Reactor Design are delighted to be working with the chefs at Heston Blumenthals experimental kitchen. The chefs are using CRDs Polar Bear Advanced Cooling Technology at their kitchen in Bray.
Our Gen III+ AP1000 reactor has set the new industry standard for PWR thanks to our simplified, innovative, and effective approach to safety. This revolutionary technology is the result of over 60 years of successful operating nuclear power plant experience, leveraging enhanced versions of equipment found in currently operating Westinghouse-designed PWRs.
With four units setting records in full commercial operation, the AP1000 reactor represents the most advanced technology available today, able to supply over 1 GW of electricity to centralized power grids.
Simplification was a major design objective for the AP1000 reactor. The simplified plant design includes overall safety systems, normal operating systems, the control room, construction techniques, and instrumentation and control systems. The innovative AP1000 reactor design features: fewer safety-related valves, less safety-related piping, less control cable, fewer pumps, less seismic building volume.
On suggestion by @CastleKSide, I decided to start a thread on nuclear reactor design, particularly with a focus on near-term next-generation reactors, but generally open. This will split the discussion on the SpaceX thread about startups working in modular reactors.
The flip side of the coin is where are said reactors going to be built and who is going to build them. The US has made an economic disaster out of nuclear power design, and that isn't uncommon. France seems to be the leader, although Finland has recently built 4 (almost done the fifth) in direct response to global warming. Presumably China and India would be ideal places to build such things, but getting the things built to spec and maintaining budget would be crucial.
The economic disaster that is the US nuclear power industry is such that *maybe* they can get regulations in place and have the old guard retire/go out of business/die and build the next-next-generation of nuclear reactors (although by then wind, solar, and batteries will be likely entrenched). But if they finally stop advancing you might be safe in planning a nuclear reactor.
There was a brief period when South Africa was looking like it was going to be a worldwide leader in advanced reactor design, back when Advanced meant pebble bed designs. But their teams ran into problems, I dont remember if they were technical or political, and they lost their lead.
The major - and to me somewhat surprising (and pleasantly so) - difference is that the modern Green /Environmentalists see Global Warming as the ultimate enemy, and that nuclear can be a solution. As religiously anti - nuke as so many were, to hear even grudging acknowledgement that nuclear plants are acceptable is a sea-change.
Kilopower is a small reactor NASA designed for use on spacecraft... BEFORE Starship was on the horizon to make cheap lift a reality. It's less efficient that Megapower, (Which fits in a shipping container) which is less efficient than utility-scale nuclear, but modular nuclear has the benefits of eventually reaching economies of scale.
A single reactor is a single point of failure- sabotage, incompetency, enemy actors, political winds, anything that takes it out, takes it ALL out. this also applied to the distribution network to get the power where it needs to go, which isnt 100% efficent either. I dont know the first thing about what the actual numbers are, but at some point, distribution losses and grid failures have to be a larger concern than the "bulk discount" of a larger reactor.
As already mentioned may main issue with many new reactor design is that they use graphite as the moderator. And while graphite will not burn in normal circumstances, a nuclear reactor with a failed cooling system will get hot enough to ignite graphite if it comes into contact with air. (It will also react with water if the amount you pour onto it is insufficient to cool it down fast enough.) As a case in point please remember that a large amount of the radioactive contamination from the Chernobyl disaster was released because the graphite moderator was on fire, or the Windscale fire. So every new reactor design that plans to use graphite as moderator needs to address this issue in a satisfactory fashion. And, no, "we won't let oxygen get to our reactor core" is IMHO not satisfactory!
AFAIK the German pebble-bed reactors - e.g. the THTR-300 - had a claimed security feature that at high temperatures the nuclear reaction is self limiting - although more through Doppler broadening than thermal expansion AFAIK - with the reactor core being able to withstand temperatures where the cooling trough radiation will keep the temperature stable. But I'm sure that didn't include oxygen (i.e. normal air) getting into the mix...
Hmmm... Considering that the German Wikipedia claims that TIGRA reactors of 20 kW power were (are?) on offer, I'd say that there's only a financial lower limit on a power reactor size. I.e. building any kind of nuclear reactor will involve significant costs so that doing so just to generate a few tens of kW of electricity or heat just isn't worth it.
I don't think nuclear will ever be "scalable" in the sense that you have one design that you can just scale up or down to match the power required for your application. But it is scalable in the sense that you can get reactors from tens of kW to a few GW.
Thermodynamic efficiency mostly depends on the input temperature of the thermodynamic cycle. (Because the lower temperature is usually close to surrounding air / water temperature.) But with nuclear the fuel is so cheap that the thermodynamic efficiency doesn't matter much. Nuclear power plants usually run at a low thermodynamic efficiency compared to e.g. coal power plants. My guess is that this is in order to increase the margin of safety: a leak in a pressure vessel in a nuclear PP is a much bigger problem than in a coal PP. I think the main reason why nuclear PPs are relatively large is because with the current designs it doesn't cost much more to build a 4 GWthermal reactor than to build a 0.5 GWthermal reactor.
I've never really thought about scalable nuclear in the sense of private / base uses (ala gas generators)... But my 'industrial production' presumption is that given the host nation's insatiable desire for power, the largest plant that meets the intersection of affordable and relative safety is what gets built.
A confounding factor is the cost of shipping in fossil fuel. It's the reason the US military and Russian towns in the Arctic are looking at miniature nuclear that wouldn't make sense in a more on-the-grid locale.
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