The University of Sheffield announced that it has engaged in a new £1 million (about $1.29 million) research partnership with Sellafield Ltd., the U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, and the U.K. National Nuclear Laboratory that will seek to address some of the challenges of nuclear waste encapsulation by looking at new cement technologies to provide safe and reliable disposal solutions.

The United Kingdom’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has announced that it will establish a Plutonium Ceramics Academic Hub with the Universities of Manchester and Sheffield. The announcement follows a decision by the U.K. government in January to immobilize the country’s inventory of civil separated plutonium at the Sellafield nuclear site, mitigating the material’s long-term safety and security risks.