Search

HTR50S is a small modular reactor system based on HTGR. It is designed for a triad of applications to be implemented in successive stages. In the first stage, a base plant for heat and power is constructed of the fuel proven in JAEA's 950°C, 30MWt test reactor HTTR and a conventional steam turbine to minimize development risk. While the outlet temperature is lowered to 750°C for the steam turbine, thermal power is raised to 50MWt by enabling 40% greater power density in 20% taller core than the HTTR. However the fuel temperature limit and reactor pressure vessel diameter are kept. In second stage, a new fuel that is currently under development at JAEA will allow the core outlet temperature to be raised to 900°C for the purpose of demonstrating more efficient gas turbine power generation and high temperature heat supply. The third stage adds a demonstration of nuclear-heated hydrogen production by a thermochemical process. A licensing approach to coupling high temperature industrial process to nuclear reactor will be developed. The low initial risk and the high longer-term potential for performance expansion attract development of the HTR50S as a multipurpose industrial or distributed energy source.

Lead sulfide colloidal quantum dot (CQD) solar cells demonstrate extremely high short-circuit currents (Jsc ) and are making decent progress in power conversion efficiencies. However, the low fill factors (FF) and open-circuit voltages have to be addressed with urgency to prevent the stalling of efficiency improvements. This paper highlights the importance of improving hole extraction, which received much less attention as compared to the electron accepting component of the device architecture (eg. TiO2 or ZnO). Here, we show the use of semiconducting polymer Poly(3-hexylthiophene-2,5-diyl) (P3HT) to create efficient CQD devices by improving hole transport, removing interfacial barriers and minimizing shunt pathways, thus resulting in an overall improvement in device performance stemming from better Jsc and FF.