Molten salt reactor neutronics and fuel cycle – review of advancements and potential future research directions

Generation IV nuclear reactor designs, like molten salt reactors (MSRs), provide passive safety and improved economics by dissolving fuel with liquid salt and moving it through the heat exchangers and core. Notwithstanding the technology's enormous potential, there is a dearth of comprehensive studies that use bibliometric and systematic review techniques to examine the development and patterns of the MSR technology. This paper adopts the bibliometric review approach using the VOSviewer and Bibliometrix package in R software to analyze the global research landscape of MSR technology between 2000 and 2024. The findings show that international collaboration is increasing in the field of advanced reactor designs and fuel cycle technologies, notably involving MSRs, thorium fuel cycles, and advanced simulation models. The research clusters indicate a multidisciplinary nature involving nuclear chemistry, reactor physics, materials science, and computational modelling. This notwithstanding, challenges such as salt purity, corrosion-resistant materials, and long-term safety are still barriers. Future research should therefore optimise fuel cycles and make advances in core designs for mini reactors while transmutating waste to reduce the radioactive inventory. Also, simulation tools should be developed further, especially in areas such as isotope transmutation and neutron transport, to increase the scalability, efficiency, and sustainability of MSR.