Reactor
Exclusive License for Unique and Novel Next Generation Reactor Technology Developed by and Exclusively Licensed from Sandia National Laboratories by Eden’s Co-Founding CSO and Senior Engineering Team.
Eden’s novel, “all-target” nuclear reactor technology and integrated hot cell facilities in New Mexico and New Brunswick, Canada can produce the North American demand for Mo-99 and is easily scalable to meet global demand while concurrently producing a variety of activation isotopes for therapeutic uses in nuclear medicine, such as Yttrium-90 and Lutetium-177, the primary radioisotope of the future for cancer treatment. Eden’s new-generation nuclear reactor infrastructure uses simple, straightforward, proprietary and proven design and technologies that are well developed and ready to be applied by the team that invented and tested it, and since licensing from Los Alamos has expanded and improved it, with no technical showstoppers or hurdles to overcome. Further, the operational economics of the Eden facilities are projected to be a fraction of competitors. The technologies, team, processes, and economics are aligned to assure reliable, cost-efficient production outcomes.
Eden’s “All-Target Reactor” radioisotope reactor infrastructure is very simple. Instead of using a large high-flux reactor to irradiate uranium loaded targets, the Eden reactor core is entirely made of low-enriched uranium (LEU) targets. Every target can be processed to make Mo-99 and no driver fuel is required. This innovative approach allows Eden to produce Mo-99 without creating spent nuclear fuel. By using this method, the reactor is optimized to produce Mo-99. The reactor operates at 2 MW in an open pool, making it relatively easy to operate and inherently safe. At this power level, only a limited number of targets need to be processed each week to meet the US demand for Mo-99. The reactor also has a relatively high thermal neutron flux, allowing for other activation locations to concurrently produce significant quantities of transmutation isotopes such as Lu-177.
Another unique feature of Eden’s technology is that the nuclear reactor facility and hot cell facility are combined such that the targets can be processed immediately after irradiation, minimizing the decay losses experienced at other facilities. The modified Cintichem process is used to chemically separate the Mo-99 from the other fission products. Uranium is also removed from the fission products, allowing it to be recycled back into new targets for future use. The waste stream fission products are solidified and, after decay, shipped to a low-level waste repository located only three miles from our site. The end result are highly efficient, flexible, scalable and cost effective facilities operating 24/7 that are projected to be more adaptive and responsive to market needs and dynamics at lower operational costs than competitors.