The Advanced Fuel Cycle Programme (AFCP) is part of the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy’s £505m Energy Innovation Programme. AFCP is led in partnership with the National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) who are collaborating with leading industrial, academic and research institutions to investigate the role of advanced nuclear fuels and fuel cycles for a Net Zero greenhouse gas emission future.Coated particle fuels are a potential advanced fuel technology consisting of a fuel kernel encapsulated within multiple layers of ceramic, typically silicon carbide and pyrolytic carbon.The challengeNew types of reactors (Generation-IV) are under consideration due to their improved efficiency of electricity generation and potential for cogeneration (e.g. hydrogen production). Foremost amongst these new types of reactors are High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactors (HTGR), which employ a very different fuel form to that which is used in the current fleet of reactors, described as Coated Particle Fuels (CPF). There is interest in the UK to develop an indigenous fuel supply for CPF and to do this will require new infrastructure for manufacturing and quality assurance. Such a development would likely occur in the next ten years. CPF consist of a spherical kernel of fissile material (typically UO2 500 µm in diameter) coated in a number of layers of pyrolytic carbon and silicon carbide, increasing the diameter to approximately 1 mm (see Figure 1). The manufacturing process for this fuel requires online quality control to minimise the number of non-spherical or misshapen particles making their way into the fuel, since these are linked to fuel failures during operation of the reactor. Depending on the size and design of the reactor, the core would contain between 200 and 7000 kg uranium. Many countries, including the US, China, Japan, Poland and Indonesia, are also considering the deployment of HTGRs and therefore the future fuel supply market is significant (100s tonnes/yr). Companies such as X-energy, BWX Technologies (BWXT), Nuclear Fuel Industries (NFI) and China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) have or are developing manufacturing plants for the supply of CPF A novel solution is sought to the quality assurance processes that separate misshapen kernel and coated fuel particles from those that are perfectly spherical. The kernels are uranium dioxide and typically 500 μm in diameter, and the coated fuel particles have an approximate diameter of 1 mm. The key attributes of the solution will be the accuracy of the separation process and the throughput.Open callApplications are invited for technological solutions to meet this challenge. Funding is available for feasibility and proof of concept projects which may provide a solution to all or part of this challenge.Please download the challenge statement for a full description of the challenge aims, current practice and the solutions NNL are seeking.Next StepsIf this is of interest to you, or if you'd like more information on this challenge – please CONNECT.