en.Wedoany.com Reported - On August 11, TRISO-X, an advanced nuclear fuel manufacturer under X-energy, announced the renewal of a 30-month Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory to continue advancing the commercial-scale development, manufacturing process optimization, and technology transfer of TRISO coated particle fuel. The collaboration between the two parties began in 2016.
Under the agreement, TRISO-X will continue operating the fuel pilot production facility located at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The two parties will conduct R&D focused on fuel quality and production yield improvement, characterization method enhancement, manufacturing process optimization, and alternative fuel forms, while also exploring TRISO technology solutions for the small modular reactor, microreactor, and particle fuel markets.
TRISO fuel consists of a uranium fuel kernel surrounded by multiple layers of carbon materials and a silicon carbide ceramic coating, capable of maintaining fission product containment under high-temperature and high-irradiation conditions. TRISO-X develops spherical fuel elements for X-energy's Xe-100 high-temperature gas-cooled reactor, with each fuel sphere containing more than 18,000 TRISO fuel particles.
Alongside the extended R&D collaboration, TRISO-X is constructing the TX-1 commercial nuclear fuel manufacturing facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Main construction of the facility began in November 2025, with a building area of approximately 215,000 square feet. The facility is planned to produce approximately 700,000 TRISO-X fuel spheres annually, sufficient to meet the fuel demand of 11 Xe-100 reactors, with fuel manufacturing expected to commence in early 2028.
In February 2026, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued TRISO-X a Part 70 special nuclear material license with a 40-year validity period, authorizing the company to commercially produce advanced reactor fuel using high-assay low-enriched uranium. This marks the first time the United States has issued such a license to a high-assay low-enriched uranium fuel manufacturing facility.
Commercial advanced nuclear fuel produced at TRISO-X's pilot facility in Oak Ridge has entered irradiation testing at Idaho National Laboratory's Advanced Test Reactor to evaluate fuel performance under varying power, temperature, and burnup conditions. The company also plans to build a dedicated R&D center at the Oak Ridge Nuclear Fuel Campus to bridge process development at the pilot facility with commercial-scale production at TX-1.
