New York-based NANO Nuclear has filed a construction permit application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for its KRONOS microreactor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in Champaign, Ill.
The Grainger College of Engineering at the university was the entity that formally submitted the application, NANO Nuclear said in an April 2 press release. The application was filed March 31.
The university’s engineering department is NANO’s partner for the deployment of the research reactor.
According to the university press release, the submission is the first major step in the two-part 10 CFR Part 50 licensing process for test and research reactors. Part 50 is the two-step process where a company first pursues a construction permit followed by an operating license.
The submission comes after years of pre-application engagement with NRC, including completion of a readiness assessment, the company said.
NANO said it has become the first commercially-ready microreactor developer and the third commercially-ready Gen IV advanced reactor developer to submit a construction application. NANO is currently developing the high-temperature gas-cooled KRONOS modular microreactor, designed to be portable and produce up to 15 megawatts of electricity and 45 megawatts of thermal energy.
“Reaching the CPA [constriction permit application] stage places NANO Nuclear in a small group of companies that are advancing toward commercial deployment at scale,” Nano Nuclear Founder and Chairman Jay Yu said.
While the company awaits formal review for the application, Yu said NANO will work on a reduced-scale non-nuclear engineering demonstration unit at its technical and demonstration facility in Oak Brook, Illinois.
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign first announced the project, the Illinois Microreactor Demonstration Project, after submitting a letter of intent with NRC in 2021. NANO and the university formalized their partnership to build the research KRONOS reactor at the school’s campus in an agreement signed in April 2025.