The award brings together world-leading expertise led by the University of Manchester in collaboration with the Universities of Oxford, Plymouth, and Loughborough.
Nuclear energy is expected to play a central role in the UK’s net zero goals as it emits nearly zero carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gas emissions – but it comes with challenges.
The five-year ENLIGHT programme (Enabling a Life cycle Approach to Graphite for Advanced Modular Reactors) will develop critical technologies to support the deployment of next-generation nuclear energy technology and will address two of the UK’s most pressing nuclear challenges – securing a sustainable, sovereign supply of nuclear graphite and finding solutions to manage the country’s growing volume of irradiated graphite waste.
The project is supported with an £8.2m grant from UK Research and Innovation’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), higher education institutions, and 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 a global leader in advanced reactor technology and clean energy innovation.
Principle Investigator Professor Abbie Jones, Chair in Nuclear Graphite at The University of Manchester, said: “Nuclear graphite plays a vital role in the safety and efficiency of advanced reactors, yet the UK currently relies on overseas suppliers for this material.
“ENLIGHT will lay the foundation to reestablish a UK-based graphite supply chain while developing sustainable solutions to recycle and reuse irradiated graphite – transforming a growing waste stream into a valuable resource.
“This programme will reduce waste, strengthen energy security, and support the country’s net zero ambitions.”
Graphite is a critical component in many next-generation advanced modular reactors (AMRs), including high temperature gas-cooled reactors and various molten salt reactor designs – technologies key to 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 existing advanced gas-cooled reactor fleet approaching decommissioning by 2028, and more than 100,000 tonnes of irradiated graphite already in storage, ENLIGHT will pioneer new approaches to both recycling legacy material and producing new, sustainable high-performance graphite suitable for future AMRs.
The programme will focus on three strands of work:
• Sustainable graphite – developing processes for decontaminating, recycling and reusing irradiated graphite from arm deployment
• Graphite selection & design – designing new graphite materials engineered to withstand extreme conditions in AMR environments
• Graphite performance – understanding how these new materials behave in novel AMR conditions to improve its lifespan
These advances could save the UK up to £2 billion in future
waste management costs and offer a pathway to strengthen the UK’s unique position as a global hub for graphite research and innovation.
Professor James Marrow, Professor of Energy Materials at the University of Oxford, will lead theme two, which will focus on graphite selection and design. He said: “I’m delighted to be leading theme two (Graphite Selection & Design – Designing new graphite materials engineered to withstand extreme conditions in AMR environments) in this major project.
“Materials will contribute to several work packages across the whole activity, and our initial focus will be on novel studies of mechanical damage to support the design and qualification of new nuclear graphite for advanced fission reactors.”
At Loughborough University, researchers are contributing advanced computational modelling to explore how nuclear graphite behaves under extreme conditions.
Dr Kenny Jolley, Senior Lecturer in Materials Modelling at Loughborough University, said: “This will help us predict
how and when these critical reactor components may fail, guiding the design of stronger, more reliable materials for the reactors of tomorrow.
“Our research also supports the reuse and recycling of existing graphite, helping to make future nuclear energy both safer and more sustainable."
The University of Plymouth will bring expertise in the analysis of porous materials, which will play a critical role in evaluating the performance and suitability of repurposed graphite.
Dr Katie Jones, Lecturer in Environmental and Analytical Chemistry at the University of Plymouth, said: “Our expertise in analysing the intricate properties of porous materials will be instrumental in ensuring the suitability of repurposed graphite for next-generation nuclear reactors, and we are particularly excited to have the opportunity to grow our relationship with the University of Manchester – and our industrial partners across the nuclear industry – through this initiative.”
ENLIGHT will also focus on skills development to expand the national graphite research community and train the next generation of graphite scientists and engineers essential to the UK's clean energy future.