NAAREA announces the commissioning of its I-Lab

NAAREA announces the opening of its industrial test facility and laboratory, the I-Lab. This 2,400 m2 site will be used to conduct non-nuclear tests and experiments to support the development of its XAMR® microreactor.

NAAREA takes a new step forward with the commissioning of its I-Lab, its industrial test facility and laboratory. Located in Cormeilles-en-Parisis, this 2,400 m2 site, designed to accelerate innovation, will host a team of around 20 NAAREA engineers as well as experimentation facilities to validate the non-nuclear environment of the technologies that will be used in NAAREA’s microreactors (pumps, gas systems, materials, valves, chemical processes, sensors, actuators, etc.) and their modes of operation.

The I-Lab will have three main areas:

• An industrial area dedicated to the production of coolant salts, prototyping, assembly and automated tests, and the validation of the future digital architecture of NAAREA’s production facilities.
• A testing area dedicated to the operation of experimentation facilities designed to validate the thermohydraulic components for the XAMR® microreactor. These facilities will primarily include test loops and testbeds on various scales.
  This space will play a key role in the testing and validation of the ALIS project instrumentation. Granted support from France 2030 and the Île-de-France Region for its first phase, ALIS is a joint project undertaken by NAAREA, CNRS-IJCLab and iUMTEK. Its aim is to develop analytical tools that will notably help ensure maximum safety and optimized control of the future XAMR® microreactor.
• Lastly, an area composed of three specialized laboratories:
  - A materials laboratory dedicated to studying corrosion and mechanical behaviour.
  - A chemistry and analysis laboratory for the development of methods, processes and analysis of materials and their level of purity.
  - A gas laboratory for the development of the XAMR® microreactor’s gas systems (filtration of noble gases, drying of inerting gases, enrichment and treatment of chlorine gases, etc.).
  

The tests that will be conducted using the full-size test loops at the I-Lab will allow NAAREA to make concrete progress in the development of its microreactor. They will be used to validate the studies and calculations performed by the engineering teams, test innovative processes and materials and develop the technical documentation being prepared for the French Authority for Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection (ASNR).

« I am proud of this new step forward achieved with our teams, which reinforces our progress and shows further evidence of our development. This test facility is the right size to meet our needs, and will accommodate large-scale test loops as well as materials and large structures. These tests and research are essential to our industrial goals, and mark a turning point in our road to achieve them. Complementing the joint laboratory created with the CNRS and Paris-Saclay University, I-Lab brings us into a new physical demonstration phase that was particularly important to us », commented Jean-Luc Alexandre, Founder and CEO of NAAREA.