HEXANA
🇫🇷 Aix-en-Provence, FR · Founded 2023-06-16 · Active
HEXANA is a French nuclear start-up launched in 2023 with support from the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA); the business register gives its creation date as 16 June 2023 and its seat in Aix-en-Provence. It is designing an advanced modular reactor based on the sodium-cooled fast reactor, in which fast neutrons are not slowed down and liquid sodium carries the heat. The IAEA's 2024 catalogue describes two 400 MW-thermal reactors giving 2 x 150 MWe, coupled to a high-temperature heat storage system. The company says the plant would supply heat of up to 465 °C and flexible electricity to industrial sites.
- Sector
- Fission
- Technology
- Sodium fast reactor
- Role
- Reactor developer
Terms
- Sodium fast reactor
- Liquid sodium coolant with a fast, unmoderated neutron spectrum. Sodium carries heat superbly at atmospheric pressure, but burns in air and reacts violently with water. Large sodium-cooled cores can have a positive sodium void effect that the core design must offset. Fuel is typically metal alloy or mixed-oxide.