GAIN announces fourth round of 2026 vouchers

This week, the Department of Energy's Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) announced three fourth-round fiscal year 2026 vouchers to support the development of innovative nuclear technologies. Each company will get access to specific capabilities and expertise in the DOE's national laboratory complex-in this round of awards, Oak Ridge, Argonne, and Pacific Northwest National Laboratories are named-and will be responsible for a minimum 20 percent cost share, which can be an in-kind contribution.

The awardees: One company is developing a gasket for use with high-temperature molten salts, one is validating its microreactor design, and one is testing a process for water restoration at uranium mining sites.

BNNT Materials, of Newport News, Va., will collaborate with ORNL to demonstrate that its boron nitride nanotube (BNNT)-based gaskets can "withstand molten fluoride and chloride salts while maintaining sealing performance, chemical stability, and durability under reactor-relevant conditions," according to its proposal. Utilizing ORNL's facilities and expertise, the company plans to test high-temperature exposure, leakage, permeability, thermal cycling, and material compatibility with the goal of developing a more durable gasket that could reduce leakage, maintenance, and costly downtime for high-temperature molten salt systems.

Tam Fortis Solutions, of Marina Del Ray, Calif., will collaborate with Argonne to validate computational models of its microreactor design before finalizing the design for a zero-power criticality test. Argonne also will partner with the company to "evaluate operating and transient conditions, assess heat-pipe and moderator behavior, and identify uncertainties," the proposal said.

Ur-Energy USA, of Casper, Wyo., will collaborate with PNNL to test selected apatite-based formulas to determine the ability to sequester heavy metals for water restoration following in situ recovery (ISR) uranium mining, with the goal of developing a treatment method that will reduce time, cost, and environmental impact of mining operations. In April, the company announced it had begun ISR operations at its Shirley Basin uranium mining site in central Wyoming.