Coolant

The substance that carries heat out of a reactor core to where it can raise steam or otherwise generate power. In a pressurised water reactor, ordinary water is both the coolant and the moderator; other designs separate the two jobs, cooling with helium, carbon dioxide, liquid sodium, liquid lead or molten salt while moderating with graphite or nothing at all. A reactor's coolant is not the same thing as its fuel form: a salt-cooled reactor with solid fuel and a molten-salt reactor that dissolves its fuel in the salt are different designs that happen to share a coolant.

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