As cancer rates in the West, and globally, tack upwards due to lifestyle and environmental pollution, so does the need for the nuclear isotopes used in detecting those cancers in a medical setting. But with many reactors built in the 70s and the 80s scheduled for shut down, the materials used are becoming rarer and more expensive. Now, a startup from Bristol, UK hopes to ramp up production of these materials by using a new, radical, technology.
Astral Systems, cofounded by Talmon Firestone and Dr. Tom Wallce-Smith, employs something called multistate fusion (MSF) technology in its ‘compact reactors’, enabling the increased supply of the nuclear isotopes used in modern medicine. These reactors are in fact so compact that they can fit on the average desk.
Astral has now closed over £4.5M investment led by Austria-based VC Speedinvest and UK-based Playfair.
The company says its approach will commercialize MSF technology, achieving better performance with greater efficiency and lower cost than traditional reactors.
The approach employs so-called lattice confinement fusion (LCF), a concept first discovered by NASA. This can achieve solid-state fuel densities 400 million times higher than those achievable normally, according to the company.
Leveraging earlier research from NASA, Astral also claims its platform could lead to other applications such as safe hybrid nuclear energy, space exploration, and industrial and security industry applications.
Astral’s co-founder and CTO, Dr Tom Wallace-Smith told TechCrunch: “The whole industry has been in sort of supply constraint historically because of this reliance on centralized reactors.”
“Whereas what we’re proposing is placing them in industrial units or in the basement of hospitals or production centers. We can then produce the drugs exactly where they needed, and be able to reduce the reliance on these centralized production sites,” he added.
He believes competitors are constrained by existing technology: “Most other approaches are based on linear, accelerated technology, whereas what we’re doing is essentially taking a very high TRL core architecture and putting in 2020 physics, where the ceiling is quite high in terms of performance. So we’re just at the start of what’s achievable with this,” he said.
In a statement, Rick Hao, partner at Speedinvest added: “Astral Systems represents the best of UK deeptech. Astral is delivering a fresh approach to nuclear fusion that addresses urgent medical, industrial and power needs.”
So far Astral has established three commercial fusion facilities from which it’s already generating revenues.
Also participating in the round was participation of angel investors including Oliver Buck, founder of ITM Isotope Technologies, and former ARM President of Product Group, Pete Hutton.