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Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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The Frisch-Peierls memorandum: A seminal document of nuclear history
The Manhattan Project is usually considered to have been initiated with Albert Einstein’s letter to President Franklin Roosevelt in October 1939. However, a lesser-known document that was just as impactful on wartime nuclear history was the so-called Frisch-Peierls memorandum. Prepared by two refugee physicists at the University of Birmingham in Britain in early 1940, this manuscript was the first technical description of nuclear weapons and their military, strategic, and ethical implications to reach high-level government officials on either side of the Atlantic. The memorandum triggered the initiation of the British wartime nuclear program, which later merged with the Manhattan Engineer District.
J. Chabot, J. Lecomte, C. Grumet, J. Sannier, DCAEA-SCECF-SECNAU
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 14 | Number 2 | September 1988 | Pages 614-618
Tritium Processing | Proceedings of the Third Topical Meeting on Tritium Technology in Fission, Fusion and Isotopic Applications (Toronto, Ontario, Canada, May 1-6, 1988) | doi.org/10.13182/FST88-A25202
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The feasibility of a permeation process using a palladium-silver alloy membrane, to separate deuterium and tritium from fusion reactor gaseous wastes needs demonstration owing to poisoning effects of impurities. A parametric investigation of the poisoning by the most important expected gaseous impurities (CO, CO2 and CH4) is carried out with the loop PALLAS, in function of membrane temperature (100 to 450°C), H2 pressure (0.3 to 14 kPa) and impurity concentration (0.2 to 9.5 vol.%). The poisoning effect of CO is a concern for the process while CO2 and CH4 appear to have no practical effect on the permeation rate. Depending on CO concentration optimal operating temperatures of the membrane should lie between 250 and 375°C limits.