Advancing heat exchangers, energy management and conversion systems for advanced nuclear technologies

Advanced Nuclear Skills and Innovation Campus call for proposals

The drive to achieve Net Zero Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions by 2050 requires us to re-consider how we apply all our low carbon energy sources to enable deep decarbonisation of all energy end-use applications including home heating, shipping, land transport, aviation, agriculture and industry.

Advanced nuclear technologies (ANTs), covering both Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and Advanced Modular Reactors (AMRs), have the potential to support decarbonisation in a wide variety of ways. This is beyond the decarbonisation opportunity represented by the conventional use of nuclear reactors, which in the UK operating fleet has been limited to electrical output. To be successful in the broader application of ANTs, there is a need for novel ways of extracting and managing the heat they produce for subsequent use in energy conversion systems. 

On behalf of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and the National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL), Game Changers are inviting proposals for innovative ideas which could advance technology for extracting and managing the heat from ANTs. This includes developing a better understanding of the requirements placed on such systems by energy conversion systems and reactors. 

Applications are therefore welcome that cover systems such as:

• Heat exchangers (e.g. ceramic boilers for high temperature applications, their materials and layout)
• Manifolds capable of diverting the heat from the same reactor to various different energy conversion or use systems (e.g. materials, control systems, safety aspects)
• Energy conversion systems in terms of the requirements that they place on any element of the heat transfer or management systems (e.g. the requirements from electrolysers or the intended industrial process end use
• The requirements advanced reactors could place on heat transfer and management systems due to operation at elevated temperatures and pressures and the use of novel cooling fluids and/or fuel  

Find out more

This funding call is part of a short pilot of the Advanced Nuclear Skills and Innovation Campus (ANSIC), delivered by NNL on behalf of BEIS, and will provide feasibility grants of up to £25k per project.

Please download the challenge statement for a full description of this challenge.

Further information is also available via a recording of the challenge webinar: