New £13m Nuclear Programme to Boost UK Energy Security

An Oxford University team co-led by Trinity Fellow Dong Liu is to play a key role in a major new programme which aims to transform the lifecycle of graphite in nuclear energy - an essential material for the future deployment of nuclear power.

The five-year ENLIGHT programme (Enabling a Lifecycle Approach to Graphite for Advanced Modular Reactors) will develop vital technologies to support the deployment of next-generation nuclear energy technology. This will have a critical role in enabling the UK to achieve its net zero goals, since nuclear energy emits nearly zero carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gas emissions – but it comes with challenges.

ENLIGHT will address two of the most pressing issues; the need to secure a sustainable, sovereign supply of nuclear graphite and finding solutions to manage the country’s growing volume of irradiated graphite waste.

Led by the University of Manchester in collaboration with the Universities of Oxford, Plymouth, and Loughborough, ENLIGHT is supported with an £8.2m grant from UK Research and Innovation’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) with around £5m of contributions from industry partners. The programme of research, collaboration, and skills development aims to secure the UK’s position at the forefront of nuclear innovation and as a global leader in advanced reactor technology and clean energy innovation.

Within the programme, the University of Oxford will lead one of the three core strands: designing new graphite materials engineered to withstand extreme conditions in Advanced Modular Reactor (AMR) environments. This will complement the other strands of developing sustainable graphite and better understanding graphite performance.

Graphite is a critical component in many next-generation AMRS which will play a key role in achieving the UK’s ambition to deliver 24GW of new nuclear power by 2050. The material accounts for around one-third of reactor build costs, yet despite its importance, the UK currently relies entirely on imports to meet demand.

With the current Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor fleet nearing decommissioning by 2028 and over 100,000 tonnes of irradiated graphite already stored, ENLIGHT will develop new methods to recycle legacy material and produce sustainable, high-performance graphite for future AMRs.

Led by Professor James Marrow of Oxford’s Department of Materials and Associate Professor and Trinity Tutorial Fellow in Engineering Dong Liu, the research carried out by Oxford will help develop and select new types of recycled and sustainable graphite that can withstand the radiation and harsh environments inside nuclear reactors. The team’s research will lead to computer-based models to predict how these materials will perform over time.

Professor Liu says of the project: ‘ENLIGHT is a true opportunity to transform the design and manufacture of nuclear graphite landscape. This will not only benefit the UK enormously, but it will also provide an alternative, globally-relevant solution for managing nuclear graphite waste. We are extremely excited being part of this important national effort.

‘This work reflects exactly what we do every day in the Department of Engineering Science, where we are passionate about solving real-world industrial challenges while also exploring the fundamental science behind how complex materials behave,’ she added. ‘What makes ENLIGHT stand out is its full lifecycle approach—supporting the design and production of sustainable graphite materials for next-generation fission reactors, whilst simultaneously reducing the cost and volume of waste graphite.’