Company Overview: Metatomic, Inc., a S.C. corporation, was formed in 2016 to develop technologies for recycling the large and increasing accumulation of commercial light water reactor (LWR) spent nuclear fuel (SNF) in the U.S.

SNF is hazardous for thousands of years (NRC.gov). Approximately 92,000 metric tons of SNF from 93 LWRs operating at 56 plants has accumulated at such plants over the past decades, and approximately 2,000 metric tons are added each year. Storage costs to U.S. taxpayers are in the billions of dollars per the GAO, and SNF presents both long-term security and environmental risks. Although deemed “spent,” SNF still has approximately 95% of its potential to produce electricity, i.e., enough energy to produce electricity (and related jobs) for a hundred years (Argonne National Lab).

Molten salt reactors (MSRs) offer many advantages over LWRs. In the 1960s, a Thermal Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) was built and run for several years at Oak Ridge National Labs (ORNL). In September 2024, Natura Resources, a consortium of Ga Tech, Texas A&M, Univ. of Texas, and Abilene Christian University received approval to construct a Thermal MSR for teaching purposes. Notably, China recently built a Thorium-based thermal MSR in the Gobi Desert. A drawback of Thermal MSRs is that they still produce considerable amounts of waste.

A second generation of MSRs known as “Fast” MSRs, will burn up most of their fuel and leave comparatively minimal waste. Notably, Bill Gates’ TerraPower and Southern Power, Inc. and Core Power are working on a Fast MSR.

In anticipation of deployment of MSRs, Metatomic has developed, and in 2020 patented, technologies for conversion of SNF to salt fuel for MSRs. See U.S. Pat. No. 10,685,753 and others. Metatomic’s technology offers both Thermal and Fast MSR reactor owners/operators the opportunity to safely access existing SNF for MSR fuel, using Metatomic’s non-aqueous “dry” conversion process. Additionally, if such new fuel is used in Fast MSRs, the SNF can essentially be “burned up,” thereby closing the nuclear fuel cycle. By reclaiming uranium from SNF for use in MSR fuel, Metatomic’s process would reduce the need to buy uranium from Russia and China and the need to mine U.S. uranium, a strategic asset.

In contrast to the conventional PUREX process for recycling SNF, which separates uranium and plutonium from SNF to produce LWR fuel, Metatomic’s technologies are much simpler, and importantly, use no heavy metal separations. Consequently, Metatomic’s processes generate no plutonium or other heavy metal constituent waste streams and instead maintain plutonium and all other heavy metal SNF constituents together throughout conversion to MSR fuel. So, the Metatomic® processes are intrinsically proliferation resistant.

Facilities based on Metatomic’s processing will be of a scalable and flexible architecture. Scalability will allow production of molten salt fuel at either large regional SNF storage sites or compactly on existing LWR sites with collocated MSRs (which would thereby eliminate the need to ship SNF off-site for processing).

In 2023, the U.S. Department of Energy recognized the potential of Metatomic’s technology and awarded Metatomic $500,000 in R&D support at Savannah River National Laboratory.