US-based Quantum Leap Energy (QLE), a wholly-owned subsidiary of ASP Isotopes (ASPI) has formed a strategic framework to evaluate the long-term supply of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) to an unnamed European advanced reactor developer.
The European partner plans to supply uranium feedstocks directly to QLE’s planned conversion and enrichment facilities. QLE will leverage its proprietary Aerodynamic Separation Process (ASP) and laser-based Quantum Enrichment (QE) technologies to enrich the feedstocks into HALEU with a uranium-235 content exceeding 10%. The scope also covers potential deconversion services.
The non-binding agreement extends to the end of 2030. Commercial HALEU deliveries are provisionally estimated to begin in 2028, scaling up by 2036 to match the partner’s reactor deployment roadmap.
“Securing reliable HALEU supply is one of the most critical challenges facing the advanced nuclear industry today,” said QLE CEO Dr Ryno Pretorius. “This MOU is a meaningful step in QLE’s mission to build enrichment capabilities that serve both US and global markets. We look forward to working with a partner that shares our conviction that next-generation nuclear energy is essential to a clean and secure energy future.”
According to the MOU, the parties will conduct a technical and economic assessment to determine the viability of a long-term collaboration for the supply of HALEU with uranium-235 content greater than 10%. The MOU outlines a potential framework where the European partner would agree to provide uranium feedstocks to QLE’s planned conversion and enrichment facilities, and QLE would agree to enrich such feedstocks to produce HALEU, including potential deconversion, for delivery to the partner company.
QLE and ASPI currently do not have an active, large-scale commercial HALEU production plant. They are a development-stage nuclear fuels company utilising a network of operational test facilities and planned commercial production hubs across three countries – South Africa, the US and the UK.
QLE leverages two core proprietary technologies for enrichment: Aerodynamic Separation Process (ASP) and laser-based Quantum Enrichment (QE). The ASP technology is a gas-based enrichment system derived from South Africa’s historic aerospace and nuclear programmes. It functions as a stationary wall centrifuge. Gaseous material (such as uranium hexafluoride) is injected tangentially at high speeds into a static, fixed tube through precisely placed surface openings. The gas forms high-velocity dual vortexes around the central axis of the tube, spinning at several hundred metres per second.
The resulting centrifugal force separates the isotopes by mass in a radial pattern. Different fractions are then harvested at opposite ends of the tube. The system features minimal moving parts radically reducing maintenance costs, lowering energy consumption, and enabling a significantly cheaper, more compact footprint than traditional mechanical centrifuges.
The QE technology is a highly advanced, laser-based isotope separation method that relies on quantum mechanics rather than mass differences alone. Solid raw material (typically a metal) is heated until it vaporises into an atomic gas cloud. This vapour cloud passes through a highly precise, tuned laser beam. The laser is calibrated to an exact wavelength matching the transition energy of the target isotope, stripping away an electron to ionise it. A negatively charged collector plate then attracts and separates the positively charged target isotopes from the neutral waste material. Because it targets the quantum state of the atom, it can achieve high isotope purity in fewer steps (stages).
In South Africa, the core corporate development labs and initial production plants are located at a dedicated campus in Pretoria. Historically, this development stems from partnerships with Klydon, an engineering firm based at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) hub in Pretoria. ASPI has built its first two commercial-scale ASP plants there, which are producing stable, light isotopes such as carbon-14 and silicon-28 for the semiconductor industry.
ASPI completed and commissioned its very first Quantum Enrichment laser facility at this Pretoria location. It is currently being used to refine heavy elements like ytterbium-176 for medical cancer therapies. While the foundational engineering is done in Pretoria, the technology is transitioned to the Pelindaba nuclear site, operated by the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (Necsa) for high-consequence nuclear applications.
QLE has constructed its first HALEU test facility in Pelindaba to prove that the ASP and QE processes could scale to successfully enrich uranium for small modular reactors. This location is also the target for QLE’s primary commercial HALEU plant, backed by a 10-year supply agreement with TerraPower.
In the US, QLE is planning a hypergrid campus in Texas. QLE entered into a joint venture with Fermi America to construct an advanced nuclear fuel research and production facility near Amarillo to provide domestic HALEU and low enriched uranium up to 10% (LEU+) as well as uranium conversion and deconversion services.
In the UK, the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero (DESNZ) has cleared QLE Ltd for early engagement with the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR). The proposed UK facility is located at the former Berkeley nuclear power station site in Gloucestershire. QLE signed a deal with the developer Chiltern Vital Group to build a plant at the Berkeley site. Chiltern is transforming the decommissioned station into a “nuclear centre of excellence”. The facility is being set up specifically to develop and produce specialised fuel for the nuclear fusion industry, as well as managing lithium laser enrichment in partnership with the University of Bristol.
Given that QLE has not yet built a fuel production facility the 2028 timeline for first fuel production seems to be ambitious. However, QLE and ASPI are adopting three specific strategies that, they believe, make a 2028 delivery target technically achievable.
First, unlike traditional enrichment facilities that require massive, custom-built concrete halls to house miles of spinning centrifuges, ASPI’s technology is ultra-compact. Both the Aerodynamic Separation Process and Quantum Enrichment laser setups are modular. The enrichment “cascades” are pre-assembled inside standard, ruggedised 40-foot shipping containers at their primary engineering hub in Pretoria. Once built, these containers are simply trucked or shipped to the deployment site, placed on a concrete pad, and plugged into the electrical grid. This compresses the physical construction timeline from years to months.
Second, the longest delay in any nuclear project is not construction but environmental and regulatory licensing. QLE is circumventing this by partnering with state-owned nuclear entities. QLE is not trying to clear fresh land and get a brand-new nuclear site permit. Their primary HALEU test facility is built directly inside the Pelindaba nuclear site in South Africa, which has been a fully licensed, secure nuclear facility for decades. Because the site footprint already possesses the highest level of nuclear security, waste handling, and regulatory approvals, QLE only needs to clear the specific technology permits to scale up production.
Third, the wording in the MOU is highly precise: deliveries are projected to begin in 2028, scaling up through 2036. The initial deliveries in 2028 are intended to be small-batch, kilogram-scale quantities produced by their existing and expanding test facilities. This fuel is meant for the European partner’s regulatory validation, first-article fuel assembly testing, and non-fission thermal loops.
The massive, commercial volumes required to power an entire fleet of reactors is what scales up incrementally over the subsequent eight years as the Texas and UK facilities come online. By treating enrichment infrastructure like modular hardware rather than mega-civil engineering projects, QLE plans to meet the 2028 window. Construction and commissioning of their first operational light isotope facility in Pretoria took roughly 18 months from the initial asset acquisition to a fully functioning facility producing material.
