Benzinga | Nov 9, 2021 11:41AM EST

Lightbridge Reports Receives Notice Of Allowance For US Patent Related To Pressurized Water Reactors Fuel Assembly Design

Lightbridge Corporation (NASDAQ:LTBR), an advanced nuclear fuel technology company, today announced that it received a Notice of Allowance for a key divisional patent from the United States Patent Office related to Lightbridge's innovative metallic nuclear fuel assembly for Western-type pressurized water reactors (PWR) with square fuel assembly grids. The newly allowed patent is based on the 2014 Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) patent application and broadens the Company's claims directed to a fuel assembly where the cladding at a tip of at least one spiral rib of at least one fuel rod is thinner than the cladding at other tips of the same fuel rod. Similar to the mixed grid arrangement of metallic fuel rods, this alternative embodiment enables Lightbridge's metallic fuel rods to be retrofitted into an existing fuel assembly envelope of both existing and new-build reactors, improving overall performance and further enhancing their appeal to nuclear utilities.

Seth Grae, President and CEO of Lightbridge, commented: "We are proud to add this latest Notice of Allowance to our growing portfolio of intellectual property that supports our strategy to commercialize Lightbridge Fuel(tm) in the United States. The fuel assemblies for all commercial PWR reactors in the United States are of square fuel assembly geometry. Several small modular reactors in development will also need PWR fuel with square fuel assembly designs. We are continually developing new intellectual property around all aspects of our fuel, including technological enhancements, modifications for different reactor types, improvements to manufacturing processes, and more, resulting in being awarded additional patents from the United States, Canada, Japan, and Australia over the past several weeks."

Lightbridge Fuel has been designed to enhance the safety and economics of nuclear power for both existing and next-generation nuclear reactors. Lightbridge has patents pending in various countries around the world, including the United States, South Korea, Canada, Japan, Eurasia, and Australia, as well as additional patents pending in Europe and China.