Xu Wei, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, is one of the pioneers and founders of China's fast reactor business. CNNC data map

According to CNNC, Comrade Xu Wei (sound mǐ), an outstanding member of the Communist Party of China, a winner of the National Science and Technology Progress Award, a national advanced individual for innovation, one of the pioneers and founders of China's fast reactor business, and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, died of illness. Treatment was ineffective, and he died in Beijing at 7:20 on January 4, 2023 at the age of 86.

According to public information, Xu Wei, an expert in fast reactor technology, is mainly engaged in the research on the overall design of fast reactors, the development strategy of fast reactors and the selection of key technologies. He was born in Yangzhou City, Jiangsu Province in April 1937 and graduated from the Engineering Physics Department of Tsinghua University in 1961. , was elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering in 2011.

According to Science and Technology Daily, when the Marco Polo Bridge Incident broke out, Xu Wei was just 3 months old. His father named him "銤", hoping to have both money and rice, and hope that the country will be strong. In 1970, Xu Wei participated in the start-up experiment of my country's first fast reactor zero-power device "Dongfeng No. 6". The success of this experiment has achieved a "zero" breakthrough in my country's fast reactor research technology.

In 1986, fast reactor was included in the national "863" plan major scientific and technological projects in the field of energy. Xu Wei is the project leader.

Fast reactors, like the pressurized water reactors used in Qinshan Nuclear Power Plant and Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant, are nuclear fission reactors. But in a fast reactor, the neutrons that keep causing the fission chain reaction are mainly fast neutrons. The fuel of the fast reactor is produced while being consumed, and more is produced than consumed, so the full name of the fast reactor is a fast breeder reactor. The energy of fast neutrons in fast reactors is a million times greater than that of thermal neutrons in pressurized water reactors. Fast reactors use sodium metal as a coolant. The nuclear fission heat energy is carried out, and finally the water is heated into saturated steam, and then into superheated steam, which drives a turbo generator to generate electricity like a thermal power station.

In 1995, the China Experimental Fast Reactor Project was formally established.

In 2000, the China Experimental Fast Reactor project poured the first concrete.

In 2011, China's experimental fast reactor was successfully connected to the grid for power generation. my country has become the eighth country in the world to have fast reactor technology. This year, 74-year-old Xu Wei was co-elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.