【文章标题】：Dallas startup enriches Uranium
【文章标题】：达拉斯初创公司成功浓缩铀
【文章正文】： Actinide becomes first startup to ever enrich uranium, producing HALEU
Actinide成为史上首家浓缩铀并生产HALEU的初创公司
Currently producing enriched isotopes for pharmaceuticals, Actinide has now demonstrated an ability to produce HALEU fuel for next-generation reactors.
Actinide目前正为制药行业生产浓缩同位素，现已展现出为下一代反应堆生产HALEU燃料的能力。
Eric Olszewski
埃里克·奥尔谢夫斯基
CTO Robert Mendelsohn (left) and CEO Eric Olszewski (right) stand before Fortitude, Actinide’s second-generation calutron, estimated to deliver roughly half the throughput of the entire U.S. federal calutron fleet in a single machine.
首席技术官罗伯特·门德尔松（左）与首席执行官埃里克·奥尔谢夫斯基（右）站在“坚毅号”前，这是Actinide的第二代电磁同位素分离器，据估计，单台设备的吞吐量即可达到美国联邦所有电磁同位素分离器总吞吐量的一半左右。
Dallas, TX, August 26 â Actinide, an advanced materials company that designs, builds, and operates its own isotope separation machines, has become the first startup in history to produce high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU). The enrichment was performed on the company’s first-generation calutron, which, weeks earlier, was producing Actinideâs flagship commercial product: enriched ytterbium-176, delivered to Oklo Isotopes.
得克萨斯州达拉斯，8月26日——Actinide是一家设计、建造并运营自有同位素分离设备的先进材料公司，现已成为历史上首家生产出高含量低浓缩铀（HALEU）的初创企业。此次浓缩作业是在该公司的第一代电磁同位素分离器上完成的，而就在几周前，该设备还在生产Actinide的旗舰商业产品：浓缩镱-176，并已交付给Oklo Isotopes公司。
There is no end-to-end domestic supply chain for HALEU-based fuel: the Department of Energy says that most advanced reactor designs require HALEU, yet there is currently zero available from domestic suppliers. While conventional centrifuge enrichment is able to produce enriched uranium hexafluoride gas, this still must be converted into solid form before fuel fabrication - a process for which the United States has zero commercial capacity. The Department of Energy contracted six companies in 2024 to build out that deconversion capacity, but Actinideâs technology bypasses the bottleneck entirely by producing solid HALEU directly.
目前，基于HALEU的燃料尚无端到端的国内供应链：美国能源部表示，大多数先进反应堆设计都需要HALEU，但国内供应商目前的供应量为零。虽然传统的离心浓缩技术能够生产浓缩六氟化铀气体，但在燃料制造前仍需将其转化为固体形式——而美国在这一转化环节的商业产能为零。能源部于2024年签约了六家公司来建设这种脱转化产能，但Actinide的技术通过直接生产固体HALEU，完全绕过了这一瓶颈。
The HALEU was produced in research quantities under the laboratory-scale exclusion in NRC regulations, which carves out facilities used for experimental purposes only. U.S. law defines HALEU as uranium containing more than 5 percent but less than 20 percent uranium-235. An independent ISO/IEC 17025-accredited laboratory assayed the produced material at 15.38% enrichment. This material would still need to be fabricated into rods, pellets, or particles before a reactor could use it.
这批HALEU是在美国核管会法规中实验室规模豁免条款下以研究用量生产的，该条款专门针对仅用于实验目的的设施。美国法律将HALEU定义为铀-235含量大于5%但小于20%的铀。一家获得ISO/IEC 17025认证的独立实验室对生产出的材料进行了化验，结果显示其浓缩度为15.38%。这些材料在反应堆使用前，仍需被加工成燃料棒、芯块或颗粒。
âThis demonstration is a testament to the power and flexibility of our technology. A centrifuge plant does one thing, costs billions, and takes years to stand up. Our machines cost a few hundred thousand dollars, produce material within months, deploy anywhere, and are able to be reconfigured in a matter of days to separate various isotopes as they are needed,â said Robert Mendelsohn, co-founder and CTO of Actinide.
“这次示范充分证明了我们技术的强大与灵活。离心工厂功能单一，耗资数十亿美元，且需数年才能建成。而我们的设备仅需几十万美元，几个月内即可产出材料，可部署在任何地方，并且能在几天内重新配置，按需分离各种同位素，”Actinide联合创始人兼首席技术官罗伯特·门德尔松表示。
Actinideâs first-generation calutron is a modern electromagnetic isotope separator that sorts atoms by mass inside a magnetic field. It builds on the same core principle used in the Manhattan Project calutrons at Oak Ridgeâs Y-12, but the resemblance ends there. Modern magnets, vacuum systems, power electronics, and controls, refined by proprietary trade-secret advances, deliver the highest productivity of any calutron of its size ever constructed.
Actinide的第一代电磁同位素分离器是一种现代化的电磁同位素分离设备，可在磁场中按质量对原子进行分选。它基于曼哈顿计划期间橡树岭Y-12工厂所使用的电磁同位素分离器的相同核心原理，但两者的相似之处仅限于此。现代磁体、真空系统、电力电子设备和控制系统，经过专有商业秘密技术的改进，实现了同尺寸电磁同位素分离器中最高的生产效率。
The United States built calutrons at Oak Ridge during the Manhattan Project and continued using some of them to supply stable isotopes for medicine, industry and research until 1998. The Department of Energy has since rebuilt federal electromagnetic-separation capacity and is expanding it, but the capability remains concentrated inside the government. Americaâs dependence extends to uranium enrichment: in 2025, 77% of the enrichment services purchased by U.S. civilian reactor owners came from foreign sources, including 26% from Russia, compared with 23% from American sources.
美国在曼哈顿计划期间于橡树岭建造了电磁同位素分离器，并继续使用其中一部分为医疗、工业和研究提供稳定同位素，直至1998年。此后，美国能源部重建了联邦电磁分离产能并正在加以扩充，但这一能力仍集中在政府内部。美国对铀浓缩的依赖同样严重：2025年，美国民用反应堆运营商购买的浓缩服务中，77%来自国外，其中26%来自俄罗斯，而来自美国本土的仅占23%。
âAmerica should not have to ask another country for the materials that determine whether a reactor runs or a cancer treatment gets made,â said Eric Olszewski, co-founder and CEO of Actinide.
“决定反应堆能否运行或癌症疗法能否实施的关键材料，美国不应再向他国求购，”Actinide联合创始人兼首席执行官埃里克·奥尔谢夫斯基表示。
The company is building Fortitude, its second-generation separator. On Actinide’s engineering estimates, a single Fortitude machine would provide roughly half the isotope-separation capacity of the U.S. government’s current electromagnetic fleet.
该公司正在建造其第二代分离设备“坚毅号”。根据Actinide的工程估算，单台“坚毅号”设备即可提供美国政府现有电磁分离设备集群约一半的同位素分离产能。
Actinide was founded in September 2025 after seven years of research and prototyping by Mendelsohn. Olszewski began financing the work before the company was incorporated, moved his family to Dallas in early 2024 to join Mendelsohn in the lab and invested more than $1 million of his own capital. Actinide raised an oversubscribed seed round in March 2026 led by Onto Ventures, with participation from Neo Ventures, Mana Ventures, Discipulus Ventures, Shor Capital, angel investors Ryan Hiepler, Stephen Cole, and others.
Actinide成立于2025年9月，此前门德尔松进行了长达七年的研究与原型开发。奥尔谢夫斯基在公司正式成立前便开始资助这项工作，并于2024年初将家人搬至达拉斯，加入门德尔松的实验室，同时投入了超过100万美元的个人资金。2026年3月，Actinide完成了由Onto Ventures领投的超额认购种子轮融资，Neo Ventures、Mana Ventures、Discipulus Ventures、Shor Capital以及天使投资人瑞安·希普勒、斯蒂芬·科尔等参投。
âWhether the application is nuclear energy, cancer medicine or quantum computing, the choke point is the same: access to the right isotope. And almost everyone attacking it is years from producing anything. Eric, Robert and the Actinide team designed and built their own separator, shipped material to a paying customer, and then made HALEU. Theyâre rebuilding America’s isotope capacity and weâre proud to be on that journey with them.” - Tom McQuillen, Onto Ventures
“无论是核能、癌症医疗还是量子计算，瓶颈都如出一辙：获取合适的同位素。而几乎所有致力于解决这一问题的企业距离产出成果都还有数年之遥。埃里克、罗伯特和Actinide团队设计并制造了自己的分离设备，向付费客户交付了材料，随后又生产出了HALEU。他们正在重建美国的同位素产能，我们很荣幸能与他们同行。”——Onto Ventures，汤姆·麦奎伦
About Actinide
关于Actinide
Actinide builds modern calu
Actinide致力于建造现代电磁同位素分