LIS Technologies has received its first shipment of uranium hexafluoride (UF6) at its demonstration facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The company is the only U.S. firm to hold a proprietary patent for laser-based uranium enrichment. The material is now available for process testing and optimization activities.
The facility is located on the historic K-25 site, one of the gaseous diffusion plants built during the Manhattan Project. The UF6 will feed the proprietary CRISLA-4G process — Chemical Reaction by Isotope Selective Laser Activation — which uses infrared lasers to selectively excite molecules of the target uranium isotope and separate them from the rest. The shipment now enables LIST to begin proof-of-concept testing, materials qualification, UF6 systems commissioning, and integrated demonstration loop testing.
The stated goal is to advance the technology to Technology Readiness Level 5, the fifth of nine stages on the maturity scale used by the U.S. Department of Defense and Department of Energy. Reaching this milestone would validate the process in a relevant environment — an intermediate but decisive step toward commercial-scale production. LIST spent two years designing and integrating the full hardware architecture of its laser enrichment system before being cleared to receive the nuclear material.
The process is optimized to produce both LEU (low-enriched uranium) for existing civil nuclear power plants and HALEU (high-assay low-enriched uranium) required by the next generation of Small Modular Reactors and microreactors. It also covers the production of stable isotopes for medical and industrial applications. The ability to serve multiple segments of the nuclear fuel market is one of the key differentiators of LIST’s approach compared to conventional gas centrifuge enrichment methods.
On the commercial side, LIST is a business partner of NANO Nuclear Energy (NASDAQ: NNE), which holds an equity stake in the company and has signed a cooperation agreement with it. Together, the two companies aim to build a vertically integrated nuclear fuel production chain: LIST enriches the UF6, while NANO Nuclear develops downstream fuel fabrication capabilities, supplying both its own micro modular reactors under development and third-party industrial customers. In late 2024, LIST was selected by the Department of Energy as one of six awardees under the LEU uranium enrichment acquisition program, a $3.4 billion initiative.
The long-term plan calls for the construction of a commercial facility on LIST Island, a 206-acre area at the heart of the K-25 zone in Oak Ridge, as part of a project called Project F.U.E.L. — Future Uranium Enrichment with Lasers. If demonstration testing confirms the expected performance, LIST could emerge as a genuine domestic alternative to enrichment supplies currently dependent on European operators and, in part, still on Russian technology. For the United States, developing an independent, patented laser enrichment capability means addressing a structural vulnerability in the civil nuclear fuel supply chain.
