Copenhagen Atomics and Urenco partner on planned deconversion facility

Copenhagen Atomics and Urenco have signed a memorandum of understanding to develop a deconversion plant that would produce uranium tetrafluoride (UF₄) at a Copenhagen Atomics facility.

The MOU establishes a new framework for cooperation between a developer primarily exploring molten salt reactors (MSRs) and a global supplier of uranium enrichment services. Copenhagen Atomics-the MSR developer-seeks to employ Urenco's expertise in producing uranium hexafluoride (UF₆) to establish a UF₆-to-UF₄ pathway. This would provide Copenhagen Atomics with the UF₄ feedstock its MSRs require. The company also has purchased low-enriched uranium from Urenco as part of their collaboration.

Although the two firms have not mentioned any milestone or target completion dates for the planned facility, Copenhagen Atomics seeks to deploy its reactors commercially by the early 2030s.

Fuel for MSRs: Even an early experiment in MSR technology-the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which achieved criticality in 1965-used UF₄ (as well as uranium trifluoride) as fuel. The molten salt had the advantage of remaining liquid under the reactor's high-temperature, low-pressure operating conditions, which facilitated the removal of impurities; the fluoride specifically remained stable under neutron irradiation.

However, fuel fabricators serving the light water reactor fleet use UF₆, which can be stored or transported as a solid or a liquid outside of extreme temperatures and pressures. Deconverting UF₆ to UF₄ has been suggested to fuel MSRs. In announcing its MOU with Urenco, Copenhagen Atomics said that it would use UF₄ to produce fuel not only for its own MSRs but also for other developers' reactors and for research facilities.

Copenhagen Atomics' partnership with Urenco is not the company's first collaboration to support the procurement of fuel for its reactors. In November 2024, it signed an agreement with DeepGeo, a U.S. company developing deep geological repositories, to explore reprocessing used nuclear fuel for use in MSRs.