Fuel

The NQ150 is a GEN-IV fast breeder reactor designed to preserve the fissile fuel inventory by converting fertile material (U-238) into fissile fuel (plutonium) at the rate of its fissile fuel consumption. This capability enables to greatly simplify the reactor control and eliminates the possibility of a run-away chain reaction.
It also enables to greatly enhance the sustainability of the nuclear fuel cycle – improving natural uranium utilization and reducing long-term nuclear waste by nearly two orders of magnitude as compared with the majority of the contemporary power reactors.

The reference core is designed to use metallic uranium-zirconium alloy of the type successfully used for ~30 years at the Experimental Breeder Reactor EBR-II that was designed by ANL and operated at the Argonne National Laboratory - West, in Idaho, USA. Alternatively, the NQ150 can use uranium nitride fuel.
The required uranium enrichment is ~12.5%. Rather than enriched uranium, the NQ150 can use plutonium recycled from contemporary reactors used nuclear fuel mixed with depleted uranium while preserving the NQ150 unique proliferation resistance.