X-10 Graphite Reactor Belgium. Financed through the Belgian uranium export tax, and built with the help of British experts, the 4 MW research reactor went critical for the first time on May 11, 1956. It is used for scientific purposes, such as neutron activation analysis, neutron physics experiments, calibration of nuclear measurement devices and the production of neutron transmutation doped silicon. X-10 Graphite Reactor The X-10 Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, formerly known as the Clinton Pile and X-10 Pile, was the world's second artificial nuclear reactor (after Enrico Fermi's Chicago Pile-1), and the first designed and
Enrico Fermi him early so that he could see it happen. Getting X-10 operational was another milestone in the plutonium project. It provided data on reactor design, training for DuPont staff in reactor operation, and produced the first small quantities of reactor-bred plutonium. Fermi became an American citizen in July 1944, the earliest date the law allowed. In September 1944, Fermi inserted the first uranium fuel slug into the B Reactor at the Hanford Site, the production reactor designed to breed plutonium in large quantities. Like X-10, it had been designed by Fermi's team at the Metallurgical Laboratory, and built by DuPont,