SILEX Laser Isotope Separation Technology

The SILEX Laser Isotope Separation (LIS) technology was invented by Silex Systems scientists Dr Michael Goldsworthy (our CEO) and Dr Horst Struve (retired) in the 1990s at its Lucas Heights facility south of Sydney, Australia.

Initially, the Silex team investigated LIS techniques for several stable elements, including Chlorine, Molybdenum, Carbon, Oxygen and Silicon. Being the single largest commercial isotope market in the world, activities also focused increasingly on Uranium enrichment. It is worth noting that Australia has the largest uranium reserves in the world (around one-third of the total) however, Australia only mines uranium and sells it as uranium oxide (‘yellowcake’) – with no further processing permitted.

Several of the stable element isotopes noted above already have existing commercial markets and production is achieved via traditional methods such as cryogenic distillation (carbon and oxygen) and gas centrifuge (others listed above). There are emerging markets for isotopes in the medical radiopharmaceutical industry, such as Ytterbium and Molybdenum. The SILEX technology can potentially be applied to the enrichment of some of these valuable isotopes.

Further information regarding two applications of the SILEX LIS Technology can be found at:

Uranium Enrichment: for the production of natural and enriched uranium
Silicon Enrichment: for the emerging silicon quantum computing industry

URANIUM

Through our 51% owned subsidiary Global Laser Enrichment (GLE), the path to market for our uranium enrichment technology is currently based on the planned Paducah Laser Enrichment Facility (PLEF) Commercial Plant in the United States to produce all three grades of nuclear fuel required for current and future nuclear power plants:

PLEF UF₆ Production: via enrichment of US Department of Energy (DOE) owned inventories of depleted UF₆ tails (at the proposed PLEF) to produce uranium (in the form of converted UF₆) at a natural U²³⁵ assay of ~0.7%;
PLEF LEU Production: production of low enriched uranium (LEU) (U²³⁵ assays up to 5%) and LEU+ (assays from 5% to 10%) from natural grade UF₆ with additional SILEX enrichment capacity – to supply fuel for existing reactors;
PLEF HALEU Production: production of high assay LEU (HALEU) (U²³⁵ assays up to ~20%) via enrichment with SILEX technology to supply fuel for next generation advanced reactors, including SMRs.

Underpinning GLE’s commercialisation of the SILEX technology at the PLEF is the 2016 agreement between GLE and the DOE, which through the acquisition of over 200,000 metric tonnes of depleted tails owned by the DOE, provides the feedstock for the production of natural grade uranium hexafluoride (UF₆) over three decades.

The output of the proposed plant would be sold into the global uranium market at an expected production rate equivalent to a uranium mine with an annual output of up to 5 million pounds of uranium oxide, which would rank in the top 10 of today’s uranium mines. Preliminary analysis by Silex of PLEF UF₆ Production indicates it could rank equal to a ‘Tier 1’ uranium project based on current estimates of the low cost of production and longevity. Importantly, GLE’s depleted uranium feed and natural grade output from the PLEF is in the form of UF₆ and therefore includes the value of conversion, a critical component of the nuclear fuel supply chain, and one which is also facing significant supply constraints.

Uranium ESG focus – nuclear power for a clean energy future

Our key application – uranium production and enrichment, is core to our ESG focus. In an energy-hungry, carbon-constrained world, nuclear energy offers the unique possibility to produce emissions-free stable baseload energy at very competitive costs to renewables, whilst providing stability to the world’s electricity grids. Nuclear is the perfect complement to renewables.

SILICON

The SILEX laser enrichment technology has demonstrated the production of highly enriched silicon in the form of ‘Zero-Spin Silicon’ – an enabling material for silicon quantum computing. The Silex Quantum Silicon (Q-Si) Production Project focuses on the transition from engineering demonstration to initial commercial production in the coming years.

Quantum computing will transform humanity’s computing capabilities, allowing complex and difficult global issues to be solved, such as:

more powerful modelling of global climate systems to help develop climate change mitigation and adoption strategies; and
more powerful modelling of diseases and pharmaceutical / vaccine development, such as in the case of COVID-19.

Silicon ESG focus – next-generation computing to solve global challenges

Quantum computers, expected to be thousands of times more powerful than the most advanced conventional computers, will open new frontiers and opportunities in many industries, including medicine, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and global financial systems. Quantum computing will have the capability to solve many of humanity’s most vexing challenges.

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