New coolants, new fuels: A new generation of university reactors
Published: Friday, August 8, 2025, 4:54PM by Susan Gallier - Nuclear News
TL;DR
• Three U.S. universities (Abilene Christian University, University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign, and Pennsylvania State University) are pioneering the next generation of research reactors using advanced technologies including molten salt, helium-cooled, and sodium-cooled heat pipe designs to replace aging TRIGA reactors.
• These projects face common challenges including regulatory uncertainty, funding issues, and fuel supply dependencies on the Department of Energy, but are making significant progress with NRC licensing and commercial partnerships despite technology transitions and bankruptcies.
• The new reactors will serve dual purposes as research platforms and workforce training facilities while exploring applications in power generation, process heat, hydrogen production, and direct air capture, positioning universities at the forefront of advanced nuclear technology development.
Here's an easy way to make aging U.S. power reactors look relatively youthful: Compare them (average age: 43) with the nation's university research reactors. The 25 operating today have been licensed for an average of about 58 years.
New grid-scale power reactor and university research reactor projects are navigating some of the same obstacles—regulatory uncertainty, funding, fueling, and siting—and at an accelerated pace. Universities are bypassing TRIGA reactors, with some opting for new technologies and coolants while others are eyeing more powerful light water research reactors or are willing to host a commercial, grid-scale reactor.
In a series of conversations in June, program leaders at the three universities that have begun work with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to license non–light water research reactors shared details about how they are interacting with the NRC, the Department of Energy, and their commercial partners.
Abilene Christian University in Texas and a pair of land-grant universities—the University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and Pennsylvania State University—are each working with a different commercial partner and using a different coolant, on different timelines. While the technology is new, they're all looking for conventional university research reactor support from the DOE.
ACU and Natura Resources
ACU professor Rusty Towell's experiments with molten salts at ACU's NEXT Lab, or Nuclear Energy eXperimental Testing Laboratory, attracted the attention of Doug Robison, a third-generation oilman. Robison supported Towell's research and formed Natura Resources in 2020, investing $30.5 million in a plan to deploy the 1-MWt Molten Salt Research Reactor at ACU. ACU submitted a letter of intent to the NRC in March 2020 to build and operate a liquid-fueled molten fluoride reactor, and a construction permit application followed in August 2022.
Liquid-fueled reactor concepts have benefits for reactor control—"We're not shutting down the reactor by scramming the control rods—we shut it down by draining," Towell says—and inherent challenges, given that a molten salt reactor hasn't operated in the United States since the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment at Oak Ridge National Laboratory was shut down in 1969.
Now, ACU has a building to house its reactor—the Dillard Science and Engineering Research Center (SERC)—and a construction permit from the NRC. Towell is waiting for the fuel he needs to move ahead with construction and submitting an operating license. Meanwhile, Natura is making plans to commercialize molten salt reactor technology with help from Towell and ACU.
UIUC and Nano Nuclear
UIUC filed its LOI in June 2021, planning to deploy Ultra Safe Nuclear's Micro Modular Reactor (MMR), a high-temperature, helium-cooled reactor.
Caleb Brooks, director of the Illinois Microreactor Project and an associate professor in the Department of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering (NPRE) at UIUC, is partial to gas-cooled reactors. > "I want as boring [read: safe] a reactor as possible," he said, but also "a reactor that could pack a punch. We wanted to be working at the development of some of these beyond-electric applications, and for us, the MMR at that time was the right size for our campus."
About three years after Illinois formalized its collaboration with USNC, the company was hit by what Brooks describes as an unfortunate series of events and declared bankruptcy in October 2024.
"USNC was there with this microreactor concept well before anyone was thinking about it. Their engineering side, their licensing side was very strong," Brooks said.
Now, UIUC is looking to submit a construction permit application for the same design—a 45-MWt reactor now known as Nano Nuclear's Kronos MMR—in the first quarter of 2026 and to load fuel and begin operations in 2029.
"We were very encouraged to see Nano step up and recognize the value. For us, the MMR continues to be kind of the right-sized reactor for our application, and so far Nano has been a great partner," Brooks said.
Penn State and Westinghouse
While Penn State didn't submit an LOI until February 2025, it partnered with Westinghouse in 2022 to make plans for a 15-MWt eVinci sodium-cooled heat pipe reactor. Timelines are accelerating, and Penn State expects its new reactor to be operating in 2032—if not sooner, according to Elia Merzari, the technical lead for the FRONTIER (Forging a Renaissance of Nuclear Through Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Research) project and a professor of nuclear engineering and mechanical engineering at Penn State.
"What I've learned is that it takes a lot of effort to get this stuff going. Especially in a university, it takes a lot of moving pieces and I think sometimes people may underestimate, as certainly we did when I started, the level of complexity of a project of this size," Merzari said. "It's not just a tiny initiative in a department. It's a massive, university-wide initiative and one of the top priorities of the administration of the university."
A geotechnical evaluation is underway now to evaluate several candidate sites as part of a broader feasibility study. That study will guide the university committee that ultimately selects a site, Merzari said.
Eddie Jones is the lead project manager for sponsored research in Penn State's Strategic Interdisciplinary Research Office. He says the engagement Westinghouse has already had with the NRC for the eVinci will make Penn State's application > "kind of a refresh of what they've already done in the past."
"I've seen the number of white papers that have been reviewed and submitted and it seems like Westinghouse was kind of leaps and bounds beyond other folks," Jones said. "So we're pretty optimistic."
Multipurpose reactors
Add any new research tool to a university campus, and more questions will be asked and answered. For UIUC, the focus is on optimizing the reactor—studying instrumentation, modeling, simulation, and maintenance strategies in a "prototypic commercial" reactor that is still being used primarily for research—according to Brooks.
UIUC plans to integrate research with power and heat and site the reactor near its fossil-fueled Abbott power plant.
"In the initial stages, it's going to be quite fundamental that we demonstrate the ability to repurpose this existing fossil infrastructure with advanced nuclear," Brooks said.
The reactor's integrated thermal storage will let the university look at different operational modes. > "There's some potential that we tailor the grid in such a way that we are demonstrating the ability to do dedicated electricity production for our high-performance computing," Brooks said.
Acknowledging that > "end-use applications tend to ebb and flow in their popularity," Brooks said that the university has potential partners interested in hydrogen production, and > "we also have had a lot of interest from the direct air capture community who want to run some concepts that require process heat."
Steam and power are part of the picture at Penn State too. > "We are definitely exploring the use of the heat and electricity to both generate steam, but also we have plans to build data centers at the university as part of a broader initiative. We are exploring these things—they are part of a feasibility study ongoing that will also determine the cost," Merzari said.
Like Penn State's existing Breazeale Reactor, a 1-MW TRIGA reactor that started operating in 1955, Penn State's eVinci reactor will primarily be a research platform. Breazeale > "is really a traditional nuclear research reactor that is focused on uses of neutrons for various imaging purposes," Merzari said, while the eVinci reactor will open new research possibilities in isotope production, industrial process heat, materials testing, and sensor testing.
"We are in no way displacing Breazeale. In fact, we just had a major upgrade of Breazeale," said Jones. "We're trying to make this design as complementary as possible to Breazeale and its mission, and I think the only thing that we'll have in common is significant outreach to the community."
Training the future workforce
ACU is primarily an undergraduate university with just over 6,000 students. But academics are expanding in parallel with the university's research ambitions.
"Just two weeks ago we hired a director to stand up a graduate program in nuclear science and engineering," Towell said. The new nuclear graduate program with be the university's first science or engineering graduate program of any kind.
Meanwhile, UIUC's NPRE is anticipating record freshman enrollment for the 2025–2026 school year.
"What's driving that? I'd like to think it has something to do with exciting projects and the strong faculty that support the project, and real career opportunities emerging in nuclear and improved public sentiment towards advanced nuclear," Brooks said. Since shuttering its TRIGA reactor in 1998, the university hasn't had a research reactor on campus.
"We see a huge benefit in having students go through the licensing process to get an operating license and then actually move controls on the reactor, just like at all other university research reactors," Brooks said, adding that there is potential for > "operator training that goes beyond students—that may train operators and engineers that would work at power plants commercially."
Leaders at Penn State also have workforce in mind. Its FRONTIER project plan includes a visitor center. > "We envision this to be an opportunity for training, to understand the technology and allow a broader workforce development aspect," Merzari said.
"Whether it's at the engineering level or it's at the trade level, it's our job to prepare the Commonwealth for what's coming," Jones said, citing the need for hundreds of thousands of jobs estimated in the DOE's advanced nuclear Pathways to Commercial Liftoff report.
"The NRC has just performed"
Twenty-eight months elapsed between ACU's LOI and its construction permit application, submitted in August 2022. The NRC's review of the application took another 25 months. A May 2025 executive order has instructed the NRC to take no more than 18 months to review future applications for a reactor of any size or type. Towell isn't fazed by the changes.
"The second time any of us do anything we're more efficient at it," Towell said. "So will the NRC be faster at licensing a liquid-fueled, molten salt–cooled reactor the second time they're given a chance to do it? Absolutely."
For an agency used to licensing light water reactors with fuel cladding as one essential element of containment, a molten salt–cooled and -fueled reactor was > "a challenging project for them," Towell said. > "But the reason a lot of us got into science and engineering is because we like challenging projects. I think there were an awful lot of staff members who were excited to be able to think outside the box."
When ACU started its project, > "We thought the biggest hurdle was going to be the NRC, and the second big challenge would be just public perception," Towell admits. He was proven wrong. > "Over the last five years, the NRC has just performed," Towell said. > "Public perception continues to just be more and more in favor of this. And so those roadblocks or challenges have just fallen down, and we're thankful for it. And that's allowed us to move forward in a relatively quick time frame."
Brooks describes UIUC's licensing engagement with the NRC as > "overall quite positive" and said the agency had exceeded its own timelines for reviewing topical reports. > "Our project offers some unique aspects and [the] NRC has been a good partner in discussing those things."
Merzari said that Penn State and Westinghouse left a recent meeting with the NRC with the impression that the NRC supported the FRONTIER project timeline and was encouraging the team to think creatively about accelerating it.
Right now, that timeline says 2032 is the year when Penn State could begin operating an eVinci reactor after getting an operating license in 2030. Those dates, Merzari and Jones agree, are "very realistic"—so realistic, in fact, that they are likely to be shifted earlier.
"If there's one message we would like to share, it's just how much we appreciate the NRC, their willingness to work with the project to make sure that it's executed safely, but to try to remove any burdens that maybe have been historical burdens, roadblocks, headwinds, whatever you want to call them," Jones said. "I walked away from our meeting very encouraged. I've been a project manager for a good while. I don't get optimistic. All of a sudden, I'm saying wait—this is real, this is something different. I'm feeling a different vibe."
Fueling uncertainty
All three universities are relying on the DOE for fuel and are cautiously optimistic about securing additional federal support for projects that they believe will help meet the administration's goals for nuclear energy.
"We started this project at the request of the Department of Energy," Towell said, explaining that the DOE invited ACU to Washington, D.C., in 2019 to discuss their molten salt research. > "They said 'We love it. You've got to do this.' And we said, 'We'll do it if it's part of the Research Reactor Infrastructure Program. Will you supply this lithium-enriched salt from Oak Ridge? Will you support us with licensing?'" Towell said.
While it took a year, in November 2019 the DOE issued a programmatic letter of support, which said, in Towell's words, > "you get the reactor license, we're providing the fuel."
ACU got its license in September 2024 but still doesn't have fuel. > "We will not start construction, we cannot submit the operating license until we know what the fuel form looks like," Towell said. > "So we are at the point where every day we are waiting on DOE."
Speaking in mid-June, Towell said that Energy Secretary Chris Wright had been challenged on the DOE's commitment to provide fuel to ACU during a June 10 U.S. House Energy Subcommittee hearing. Wright's response was > "very encouraging," Towell said.
The DOE issued conditional commitments to supply high-assay low-enriched uranium to five companies in April 2025, and Towell is hopeful that the fluorinated HALEU fuel his reactor needs—something of a specialty item—is forthcoming too.
The regulatory engagement plan for UIUC's MMR calls for TRISO fuel enriched to 9.9 percent U-235, and > "perhaps even this FCM [fully ceramic microencapsulated fuel] that was developed under USNC and now continues with Standard Nuclear," Brooks said. Keeping the fuel within the LEU+ range means it could be fabricated in a Category III fuel cycle facility licensed to handle enrichments below 10 percent.
"The MMR can be deployed at a wide range of enrichment levels. We would like to have higher enrichments because that will give us longer core lives at a given design power," Brooks said. The limiting factors are > "not even really about the fuel supply itself."
He doesn't rule out future refueling at higher enrichments. > "Without getting into too many of the details or complicating the answer too much at this stage, we expect that our first core load would be LEU+."
At Penn State, a key fueling question is whether the reactor will be fueled on-site or off-site in a manufacturing facility. > "That part depends on NRC," Merzari said, > "but I'm optimistic that given our timeline probably we'll be able to fuel it off-site. That will simplify greatly the overall thing."
As for the fuel in the core, whether inserted on- or off-site, > "I think the current plan for eVinci is to use HALEU TRISO fuel," Merzari said, emphasizing that enrichment decisions largely rest with Westinghouse. > "This situation is rapidly evolving," he added. > "We think that with our timeline, HALEU TRISO should be okay, but this is something that we will consider with Westinghouse and discuss with them as the situation evolves." Westinghouse was one of five companies that received conditional commitments for HALEU in April 2025.
Support beyond fuel
The question on Towell's mind now is: > "Will the Department of Energy do what they said they would do?" Once that fuel question is answered, a funding question remains.
"Now we have to come up with the cost of doing it. Can we get support from the state, or can Natura just raise all the capital themselves?" Funding will be > "a big lift," Towell said.
Brooks said UIUC's NPRE has > "designed our project to perfectly meet both state and federal goals around reactor deployment," adding, > "We believe we have a shovel-ready project. It's time for infrastructure to be prioritized and our project can provide that."
"We expect that we could be fueled through the Department of Energy, just like all other university reactors in this country," Brooks said. > "Beyond the fuel itself, we certainly would love more involvement from Department of Energy and from federal and state stakeholders," Brooks said, adding that > "we are exploring various ways in which we can form partnerships to move forward even in the absence of investment from DOE."
Merzari also expects the DOE to supply fuel. > "They issued a report saying that they will treat new reactors like old ones," Merzari said. > "So we do plan to rely on that commitment of the federal government to provide the fuel for the reactor."
"I think it's fair to say that the federal funding situation has changed," Jones added. > "This isn't a surprise to anybody. Federal funding is always something that isn't a certainty and so you have to have contingency plans put in place. What we can tell you is that we are accelerating in the environment in which the federal funding opportunities may not be where they were in the past. So we have that level of confidence . . . we're now doubling down."
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AI Analysis
These three university reactor projects represent a fascinating transition point in American nuclear research infrastructure, moving beyond the aging TRIGA designs toward advanced reactor technologies that could bridge academic research and commercial deployment. The diversity of approaches—molten salt, helium-cooled, and sodium heat pipe systems—demonstrates how universities are positioning themselves as testbeds for next-generation nuclear technologies while addressing practical needs for workforce development and energy applications. What's particularly encouraging is the positive relationship these institutions report with the NRC, suggesting that regulatory processes for advanced reactors may be becoming more streamlined and collaborative. However, the persistent fuel supply uncertainties highlight ongoing challenges in the nuclear fuel cycle that could potentially delay these promising projects despite strong technical progress and regulatory support. The success of these initiatives could significantly influence both the future of university-based nuclear research and the broader commercial advanced reactor landscape.
