NuScale Advances SMR-Powered Desalination and Hydrogen Production with Integrated Brine Reuse Strategy
Small modular reactor (SMR) technology developer NuScale Power has unveiled research programs that could advance an energy system that integrates its nuclear technology to produce desalinated water and hydrogen, while reusing brine waste as an industrial feedstock.
The research, developed in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and presented at the March 2025 World Petrochemical Conference, will explore how NuScale’s 77-MW Power Module (NPM) could drive multiple processes, including reverse osmosis desalination and a non-electrolytic hydrogen production method based on chemical conversion of brine-derived salts.
“The near-term predictions of global water scarcity have become increasingly alarming while the interest and financial incentives for producing clean hydrogen continue to grow,” said Dr. José Reyes, co-founder and chief technology officer of NuScale Power, in a statement on June 18. “What we have found is a win-win-win aimed at addressing water scarcity, brine remediation, and hydrogen production. We believe our breakthrough innovation can meet our global water challenges while providing clean, carbon-free energy.”
NuScale’s Integrated Energy System: Key AttributesAccording to a February 2025 NuScale white paper, the integrated system centers on coupling one or more 77-MWe NPMs with a suite of hydrogen, ammonia, desalination, and industrial process applications in a configuration that is designed to flexibly provide power, steam, and thermal energy to co-located end-users.
NuScale’s 250-MWth/77-MWe NPM, a pressurized water reactor (PWR), is housed in a compact containment vessel that is immersed in a shared below-grade pool that provides passive cooling, shielding, and security. The reactor uses natural circulation—no pumps—to drive primary coolant flow through integrated helical coil steam generators and produce superheated steam at approximately 283C and 32.8 bar.
As critically, the NPM is “designed for 100% steam turbine bypass, either to the condenser or to an industrial end user,” the report notes. While the module’s thermal conversion system uses the Rankine thermal conversion cycle to produce electricity, in the secondary circuit of each NPM, feedwater is pumped into two feedwater headers of the steam generator, where the primary coolant heats it and boils to produce superheated steam,” it explains. Each NPM includes two main steam lines that merge into a single line feeding a dedicated turbine-generator system. After steam passes through the turbine, it is condensed and returned to the steam generators via a series of feedwater heaters. However, the system is also engineered with bypass lines and condenser capacity that allow all of the steam output to be diverted away from the turbine when needed.
The system supports off-grid operation, a Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)–approved distinction, NuScale notes, pointing to its design certification granted in January 2023 for its 50-MWe NPM, which was configured as a 12-module plant. While designed for dynamic load-following through control rod adjustments and steam bypass, the NPM’s air-cooled condensers are sized to accommodate full bypass flow and allow uninterrupted thermal delivery even when the turbine is offline. At nominal full power operating conditions, the NPM can produce 8,883 metric tons of steam per day (816,000 lbm of steam per hour), the report notes.
The report also suggests that NuScale has spent several years exploring how its SMR technology can support hydrogen production, focusing primarily on high-temperature steam electrolysis (HTSE) and solid oxide electrolysis cell (SOEC) systems that take advantage of the NPM’s steady, high-quality thermal output. More recently, NuScale has expanded its research to non-electrolytic hydrogen production pathways, including a novel approach that converts desalination brine into sodium formate. a stable hydrogen carrier that can be decomposed thermally to release hydrogen on demand.
According to session notes related to the World Petrochemical Conference in March, NuScale Power Innovation Manager Luis Eduardo DePavia unveiled new experimental research focused on the use of sodium formate as a hydrogen energy carrier, powered by thermal output from the NPM. The session, as a whole, explored both the feasibility and safety benefits of using sodium formate, a non-toxic, non-flammable, and low-cost white crystalline solid, as a stable storage and transportation medium for hydrogen. While sodium formate lags behind traditional liquid organic hydrogen carriers (LOHCs) in volumetric energy density at about 4.4 wt% hydrogen, the session noted that sodium formate offers advantages in safety, handling, and transport economics.
The session notably focused on two pathways to release hydrogen from sodium formate: thermal decomposition and hydrothermal decomposition using process steam. It also referenced a patent-pending NuScale process that integrates seawater desalination, brine treatment, and direct air capture (DAC) to synthesize sodium formate. Although limited detail was shared, the concept involves producing sodium from desalination brine and capturing CO₂ from ambient air, which are then chemically combined to produce sodium formate. The conference materials describe the approach as a potential closed-loop system for generating clean water and hydrogen, leveraging both the thermal and electrical output of the SMR.
NuScale on Wednesday elaborated on the research, describing a “new approach for hydrogen storage, transport, and production that uses leftover brine from the desalination process as industrial feedstock.” The company noted its research at PNNL focused on “hydrogen production from an inert salt drawn from water desalination byproducts that is safe and easy to transport.” According to the release, “NuScale’s hydro-thermal chemical decomposition approach to hydrogen production does not require electrolysis of water, driving down energy and water usage while lowering costs.”
“A single [NPM] coupled to a state-of-the-art reverse osmosis desalination system could yield approximately 150 million gallons of clean water per day without generating carbon dioxide,” it claimed. Larger configurations of 12 NPMs “would be able to provide desalinated water for a city of 2.3 million residents and also have surplus power to provide 400,000 homes with electricity.”
On Wednesday, NuScale also noted it has developed an “Integrated Energy System simulator” at its headquarters in Corvallis, Oregon. The fully functional hydrogen model can be integrated into the NuScale Control Room simulator which allows the company to assess how electricity and steam from an SMR can be used to produce hydrogen via high-temperature steam electrolysis, store it, and later convert it back into power using fuel cells. “The simulator enables the company to dynamically evaluate and optimize different configurations for a wide range of commercial scale industrial applications requiring greater than 200 metric tons of hydrogen per day,” the company said.
According to the February 2025 white paper, the capability represents a significant first for the nuclear industry. “NuScale has developed a fully functional hydrogen simulator integrated into the NuScale Control Room simulator,” the report notes. “The purpose is to demonstrate the ability to provide electricity and steam for hydrogen production, store the produced hydrogen (in a virtual tank) and use it when needed for conversion back to electricity in a fuel cell. This is the first hydrogen simulator integrated into a nuclear SMR. It allows NuScale to assess the integration and dynamics of different types of hydrogen production systems.”
The company also signaled active efforts to scale deployment through industrial partnerships. “NuScale is interested in collaborating with end users of steam, electric power, and hydrogen to assess and optimize (i.e., energy and economic efficiency) Integrated Energy Systems (IES) capable of supporting the end user’s clean energy goals at commercial scale,” the paper said.
“NuScale continues to evaluate a wide range of SMR-powered hydrogen production methods,” said Reyes on Wednesday. “Our operations team, working with GSE Solutions and Fuel Cell Energy, developed and coupled a Solid Oxide Electrolysis model for hydrogen production and a Fuel Cell model for power production to our Main Control Room Simulator,” he added.
—Sonal Patel is a POWER senior editor (@sonalcpatel, @POWERmagazine).
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