TECHNOLOGY LICENSING OPPORTUNITY: Advanced Metal Hydride Microreactor Platform

Response Deadline: Sept. 14, 2026

LANL is seeking a licensing partner to support product development, validation, and market deployment of this microreactor platform. Interested organizations should contact Kathleen McDonald by Sept. 14, 2026, at licensing@lanl.gov.

Los Alamos National Laboratory has developed an integrated technology platform that solves the core materials and engineering barriers preventing rapid deployment of compact nuclear microreactors. By combining a proprietary crack-free fabrication process, a thermally protective heat pipe moderator design and a complete core architecture built from proven nuclear materials, the platform enables organizations to produce high-performance reactor components that are smaller, more reliable and faster to manufacture than those achievable with conventional methods. The approach reduces fuel requirements by up to 50% compared to unmoderated designs, eliminates the complex environmental control systems traditionally needed to protect advanced moderators and scales from laboratory prototypes to industrial production without requiring process adjustments for different batch sizes.

The Challenge

Compact nuclear microreactors depend on solid moderator materials to slow neutrons efficiently within a small volume, yet producing and maintaining these materials at the quality and scale required for deployment remains a major obstacle. Converting bulk metal into a usable moderator involves significant physical changes that frequently cause cracking, rendering components structurally unsound and dimensionally out of tolerance. Traditional fabrication methods require careful calibration for each batch size and create conditions that accumulate internal damage over repeated processing cycles. Once fabricated, moderator materials face a second challenge inside the reactor: At the high operating temperatures needed for efficient power generation, hydrogen escapes from the moderator and migrates unpredictably through the...