In the Russian Federation 2021 was declared the Year of Science and Technology. ROSATOM and its famous research institutes cannot stay on the sidelines of this celebration. This section describes large-scale projects of The Year of Science and Technology where ROSATOM participates.
The already occurred events include the ceremony of launching construction of a nuclear power unit with the innovative fast neutron reactor BREST-OD-300, which was held on the site of Siberian Chemical Combine in Seversk (Tomsk Region) on June 8, 2021. The project was developed in the cooperation of ROSATOM’s institutes, NRC Kurchatov Institute and the Russian Academy of Sciences. The constructed reactor will be cooled by lead and run on new uranium-plutonium mixed oxide fuel. It will have 300 MW of installed power capacity. The reactor will be part of the critical facility, i.e. Pilot Demonstration Power Complex (PDPC), which will include modules for uranium-plutonium fuel production (fabrication/re-fabrication) and recycling of irradiated fuel. Therefore, for the first time in the world, one site will host a NPP with the fast neutron reactor and on-site closed nuclear fuel cycle. “Owing to infinite recycling of nuclear fuel, the nuclear power resources will become practically inexhaustible,“ Director General of ROSATOM Aleksei Likhachev said addressing the ceremony.
On September 1, 2021 a Branch of Lomonosov Moscow State University in Sarov (Nizhniy Novgorod Region) was opened. It became the key element of the National Physics and Mathematics Center, which is being created. The Center is set up in the cooperation of ROSATOM and Russian Federal Nuclear Center (RFNC-VNIIEF) situated in Sarov. The main mission of NPMC is the development of frontline educational, research and innovative infrastructure, promotion of new knowledge in different fields of physics, mathematics and information technologies. The launching of the world-level scientific and educational cluster with powerful experimental and computing facilities is expected to produce beneficial effect on development of disciplines such as geometry, modeling, supercomputing, quantum and photon physics etc.
The construction of Siberian Ring Source of Photons (SKIF) should start also this year. This is a mega-science installation, a source of synchrotron radiation, which will allow studying matter at the atomic level and obtaining fundamental knowledge in biology, chemistry, medicine and other areas. SKIF will be built in NPI SB RAS (Novosibirsk). The synchrotron and support infrastructure are planned to complete in 2023 and the start of research at first six experimental stations is set for 2024. The construction contractor is a ROSATOM’s company, Concern TITAN-2.
Also, the first run of full cycle acceleration on derived beams of the NISA complex in JINR (Dubna, Moscow Region) is set for 2021. This is a superconducting protons and heavy ions collider under construction. In November 2020, the process start-up of the booster synchrotron – one of essential elements of NISA - was carried out. And in December this year it is planned to start the second cascade of the accelerator, i.e. superconducting accelerator chains. Nuclei will be accelerated to velocities close to that of light. The task of the second cascade is to compress a beam of particles and send it to the collider ring. Niobium-titanium superconductors developed and manufactured by Fuel Company of ROSATOM TVEL have made it possible to achieve design values of magnetic field of the heavy ions accelerator (booster), which is part of the first cascade of the mega-science project of the accelerator complex.
Other events are planned till the yearend.