Pivotal laser enrichment demonstration testing under way

Thursday, 8 May 2025

The testing programme at the Wilmington, North Carolina facility is expected to be a pivotal validation of large-scale enrichment performance under operationally relevant conditions, Global Laser Enrichment (GLE) said.

GLE CEO Stephen Long said the milestone brings the company closer to realising the full commercial potential of the SILEX laser enrichment process: "Following an extensive shakedown and preliminary testing period, our team has implemented several engineering and operational modifications in the Test Loop facility to enhance overall performance.

"We are now focused on iteratively testing and optimising enrichment, undertaking any further modifications that may be needed, and accumulating data from the enrichment tests to satisfy the requirements for TRL-6 validation. Concurrently, GLE plans to leverage the lessons learned from these enrichment test runs to significantly progress the scaling and manufacturing of our full-scale plant systems and equipment."

TRL-6 is the sixth of nine internationally recognised technology readiness levels used to assess the maturity of a technology. TRL-6 confirms large-scale system performance under relevant conditions (pilot-scale demonstration).

An independent engineering contractor will assess all test activities and results of enrichment tests, GLE said. It expects to generate "hundreds of kilogrammes" of enriched uranium during the TRL-6 demonstration period.

GLE, a joint venture of Australian company Silex Systems (51%) and Cameco Corporation (49%), is the sole licensee of the SILEX process. Last year, it acquired a package of land in Kentucky where it plans to deploy the technology commercially in a plant called the Paducah Laser Enrichment Facility, or PLEF. The project is underpinned by a long-term agreement signed in 2016 for the sale to GLE of some 200,000 tonnes from the US Department of Energy's inventory of depleted uranium hexafluoride "tails" from previous uranium enrichment activities for re-enrichment to equivalent natural grade uranium hexafluoride. GLE President and CCO James Dobchuk said this would offer GLE's "utility allies ... a domestic supply diversity free from geopolitical and transportation risks."

Silex Systems CEO and Managing Director Michael Goldsworthy said he is "confident" that TRL-6 demonstration will be achieved by the end of 2025. "The excellent efforts of our world-class teams at Silex and GLE, bringing together over two decades of cutting-edge development on the SILEX laser-based enrichment technology - and culminating in the current TRL-6 test programme, can't be overstated," he said.

Article researched and written by WNN's Claire Maden