New Trends and Challenges for Nuclear Fuels

Dear Colleagues,

The intention to improve fuel resilience and utilization in light water reactors (LWRs) has motivated the development of new fuel designs, such as accident-tolerant fuels (ATFs). At the same time, an increased need for low-carbon energy generation has motivated private companies to develop and license new reactor designs to bring to the market; these designs will make use of new fuel designs, many of which are new applications of established or previously developed fuel types.

The deployment of these new fuel designs and their applications in existing and advanced reactors will depend on the confidence that reactor owners have in the reliable economic performance of the fuel, as well as the confidence that regulators have in the fuel’s safety-related performance. You are invited to submit papers for publication in a Special Issue of Energies entitled “New Trends and Challenges for Nuclear Fuels”. Rather than focusing on open-sky innovation and research results for new fuel types, the Special Issue intends to explore fuel types and designs that are intended to be used in existing reactors or in advanced reactors that are currently being developed and licensed for the market. In this issue, readers might find discussions on the trends and evolution of prior fuel designs to serve emerging applications, as well as the identification of challenges in near-term deployment, such as issues and uncertainties to be addressed for regulatory approval. Research and testing programs addressing these specific issues can be described and their results presented, along with stated implications for regulatory approval.

The scope of submitted papers might include the following:

• Applications, current qualification, and regulatory approval status of TRISO particle-type fuel designs;
• Objectives for specific accident-tolerant fuel designs or other new LWR fuel designs, their current development status, and issues remaining to be addressed;
• Applications of prior fast reactor fuel designs to new fast-spectrum reactor concepts that are currently being developed;
• Proposed molten salt fuel applications and their current development status;
• Objectives for new research reactor fuel designs being brought to market, and their current deployment challenges;
• Safety analyses of new advanced reactor designs and their implications for fuel designs and behaviour.

Dr. Douglas C. Crawford
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• nuclear fuel
• fuel designs
• nuclear regulatory approval
• advanced reactors