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April 28, 2022 | Tom Ballard

AMS serving as subcontractor to UTK on ARPA-E project

Knoxville’s Analysis and Measurement Services Corporation (AMS) announced yesterday that it will serve as a subcontractor on a project led by the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) that has been selected to receive $2.4 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

Titled “Microfluidic Alpha Spectrometer for Materials Accountancy and Control in Liquid-Fueled Molten Salt Reactors,” the project is funded under DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), specifically the “OPEN 2021” program which prioritizes funding high-impact, high risk technologies that support novel approaches to clean energy challenges.

In the case of this project, the focus is on developing a high-temperature, chemically resistant diamond-based microfluidic alpha spectrometer (DiMAS) that will enable accurate online and/or at-line measurement of alpha-emitting isotopes in liquid-fueled molten salt reactors (LF-MSRs). This technology is expected to improve material control and accountability for the fuel salt and reduce the cost of meeting regulatory requirements.

AMS, founded in 1977, is a is a global nuclear engineering firm that has representatives in Austria, China, France, South Korea, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The company’s role as a subcontractor will be to provide insight on instrumentation and control needs and quality assurance required for the DiMAS in a Gen-IV LF-MSR. AMS will also help design and develop the commercial data acquisition and electronic readout system for the spectrometer as well as produce the necessary procedures for periodic calibration and required replacement services.


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