Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL), Canada’s premier nuclear science and technology organization, signed an agreement with the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) to pursue collaborative research related to fusion, materials characterization and hydrogen science and technology.

With shared scientific missions to address national priorities in clean energy and environmental sciences, the agreement serves as a framework through which the national research organizations can collaborate in areas of mutual interest, leveraging their individual resources, facilities, and expertise.

According to terms of the agreement, the organizations will explore collaborative research projects in fields that include tritium analytics, tritium barriers and surface analysis, tritium fuel cycle optimization, characterization and metallurgy of irradiated materials, and hydrogen safety. Working together, the organizations hope to realize important progress in the advancement of these fields of research and others, which are priorities to both country’s domestic clean energy research programs.

CNL’s tritium expertise derived from decades of scientifically-technically accompanying and enabling the operation of the CANDU reactors perfectly complements the experience we have acquired in our Tritium Laboratory Karlsruhe with regard to tritium handling and processing for fusion. There is interest to extend the cooperation both towards other fusion companies as well as to the European Fusion Program.

—Dr. Klaus Hesch, Head of KIT’s Fusion Program

CNL has decades of experience and expertise in materials characterization, hydrogen production, safety and storage, and tritium research, among other related fields of research. The Chalk River campus is also home to a state-of-the-art Tritium Facility and a Hydrogen Isotopes Technology Laboratory, as well as a rapidly growing fusion energy program. Not only did CNL recently announce the expansion of two of its flagship clean energy programs to include fusion—its advanced reactor siting program and the Canadian Nuclear Research Initiative (CNRI)—but CNL also invested $10 million into General Fusion, an international leader in commercial fusion energy. This is in addition to the launch of a new joint venture with Kyoto Fusioneering known as Fusion Fuel Cycles Inc. (FFC), which is moving forward with a globally unique test facility available to industry to test and refine their unique processes.