Zoé (reactor)
Encyclopedia
The Zoé reactor, or EL-1, was the first French atomic reactor. It was built in 1947 at the Fort de Châtillon
Fort de Châtillon (Paris)
The Fort de Châtillon was a fortification located about south of Paris in the communes of Châtillon-sous-Bagneux and Fontenay-aux-Roses. It was built in 1874 and was razed beginning in 1957, making way for expansion of the French nuclear research facility at Fontenay-aux-Roses.The fort is named...

 in Fontenay-aux-Roses
Fontenay-aux-Roses
Fontenay-aux-Roses is a commune in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.École Normale Supérieure was a girls school located in the area....

, a suburb of Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

.

Design work for the heavy water
Heavy water
Heavy water is water highly enriched in the hydrogen isotope deuterium; e.g., heavy water used in CANDU reactors is 99.75% enriched by hydrogen atom-fraction...

 reactor was started in 1947 by Frédéric Joliot-Curie
Frédéric Joliot-Curie
Jean Frédéric Joliot-Curie , born Jean Frédéric Joliot, was a French physicist and Nobel laureate.-Early years:...

, who was at the time director of the French atomic energy agency Commissariat à l'énergie atomique
Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique
The Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives or CEA, is a French “public establishment related to industrial and commercial activities” whose mission is to develop all applications of nuclear power, both civilian and military...

(CEA). The project manager was Lew Kowarski
Lew Kowarski
Lew Kowarski was a naturalized French physicist, of Russian-Polish descent. He was a lesser known but important contributor to nuclear science.-Early life:...

, who had just returned from Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, where he had supervised the construction of the Canadian ZEEP
ZEEP
The ZEEP reactor was a nuclear reactor built at the Chalk River Laboratories near Chalk River, Ontario, Canada . ZEEP first went critical at 3:45 PM, September 5, 1945...

 heavy water reactor. Zoé was activated on 15 December 1948, reaching a power of 150 kW by 1953. The nuclear fuel
Nuclear fuel
Nuclear fuel is a material that can be 'consumed' by fission or fusion to derive nuclear energy. Nuclear fuels are the most dense sources of energy available...

 was provided by Bouchet of Ballancourt-sur-Essonne
Ballancourt-sur-Essonne
Ballancourt-sur-Essonne is a commune in the Essonne department in Île-de-France in northern France.-Geography:The Essonne forms the commune western border.Inhabitants of Ballancourt-sur-Essonne are known as Ballancourtois.-References:**...

, which reprocessed
Nuclear reprocessing
Nuclear reprocessing technology was developed to chemically separate and recover fissionable plutonium from irradiated nuclear fuel. Reprocessing serves multiple purposes, whose relative importance has changed over time. Originally reprocessing was used solely to extract plutonium for producing...

 the irradiated fuel and extracted the first milligrams of French-produced plutonium
Plutonium
Plutonium is a transuranic radioactive chemical element with the chemical symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is an actinide metal of silvery-gray appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, forming a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibits six allotropes and four oxidation...

. The reactor was shut down in March 1976 and containment of the reactor was completed in 1977.

The choice of moderator and fuel was dictated by the undeveloped state of the French nuclear industry at the time, which could not manufacture the corrosion-proof equipment needed for a more advanced unit. The reactor was a pool-type design, with five tons of heavy water moderator
Neutron moderator
In nuclear engineering, a neutron moderator is a medium that reduces the speed of fast neutrons, thereby turning them into thermal neutrons capable of sustaining a nuclear chain reaction involving uranium-235....

 surrounded by a two meter-thick concrete wall. The core, immersed in the pool, consisted of 60 aluminum-cased vertical rods containing three tons of uranium oxide pellets, controlled by cadmium
Cadmium
Cadmium is a chemical element with the symbol Cd and atomic number 48. This soft, bluish-white metal is chemically similar to the two other stable metals in group 12, zinc and mercury. Similar to zinc, it prefers oxidation state +2 in most of its compounds and similar to mercury it shows a low...

 rods. The heavy water was purchased from Norsk Hydro
Norsk Hydro
Norsk Hydro ASA is a Norwegian aluminium and renewable energy company, headquartered in Oslo. Hydro is the fourth largest integrated aluminium company worldwide. It has operations in some 40 countries around the world and is active on all continents. The Norwegian state holds a 43.8 percent...

. A cooling system was added after the reactor had operated for a time, allowing it to run at a heat release rate of 200 kilowatts.

The name Zoé was an acronym for Zéro de puissance (zero power, that is, very little capacity to produce electricity, which made it easier and faster to build); Oxyde d'uranium (uranium oxide), Eau lourde (heavy water). The Châtillon site was superseded for later nuclear research by a new site at Saclay
Saclay
Saclay is a commune in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.It is best known for the large scientific facility CEA Saclay, mostly dealing with nuclear and particle physics....

. The reactor was also known as EL-1 (Eau Lourde); its successor at Saclay was EL-2.

The building that formerly housed Zoé is now an exhibit space, the Museum of the Atom.

Source

  • This article incorporates text translated from the corresponding French Wikipedia article as of April 26, 2010.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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