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Radiation Protection & Shielding
The Radiation Protection and Shielding Division is developing and promoting radiation protection and shielding aspects of nuclear science and technology — including interaction of nuclear radiation with materials and biological systems, instruments and techniques for the measurement of nuclear radiation fields, and radiation shield design and evaluation.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Argonne research aims to improve nuclear fuel recycling and metal recovery
Servis
Scientists at Argonne National Laboratory are investigating a used nuclear fuel recycling technology that could lead to a scaled-down and more efficient approach to metal recovery, according to a recent news article from the lab. The research, led by Argonne radiochemist Anna Servis with funding from the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E), could have an impact beyond the nuclear fuel cycle and improve other high-value metal processing, such as rare earth recovery, according to Argonne.
The research: Servis’s work is being carried out under ARPA-E’s CURIE (Converting UNF Radioisotopes Into Energy) program. The specific project—Radioisotope Capture Intensification Using Rotating Packed Bed Contactors—started in 2023 and is scheduled to end in January 2026.
E. G. Lindquist, T. E. Gebhart, D. Elliott, E. W. Garren, Z. He, N. Kafle, C. D. Smith, C. E. Thomas, S. J. Zinkle, T. M. Biewer
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 77 | Number 7 | November 2021 | Pages 921-927
Student Paper Competition Selection | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2021.1909989
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An electrothermal-arc plasma source (ET-Arc) has been developed to produce transient plasma heat and particle fluxes similar to those produced by edge localized modes onto divertor plasma-facing components in tokamaks. The ET-Arc utilizes a capacitive discharge to send current through a 4-mm-diameter, 9-cm-long capillary source liner. The liner material is ablated to form a high-velocity plasma jet that impacts the target downstream. With the current discharge circuit configuration, pulse lengths are 1 to 2 ms in duration and deliver heat fluxes of 0.25 to 2.1 GW m−2. The plasma was previously characterized with optical emission spectroscopy (OES) on helium emission lines. The He I line ratios were interpreted with collisional radiative analysis to calculate ne and Te. The electron temperature and electron density ranged from Te = 1 to 5 eV and ne = 1022 to 1028 electrons/m3, respectively.
Recently, the vacuum configuration and target of the ET-Arc device were modified to allow greater diagnostic access for plasma-material interaction (PMI) studies and diagnostic development. The diagnostic suite included two Tektronix high-voltage probes to measure the capacitor and discharge potentials, a discharge current monitor, Edgertronic SC1 high-speed cameras to image the discharge, and a FLIR SC4000 infrared camera to estimate heat flux on the target. The system used OES for plasma characterization, but a new Thomson scattering (TS) diagnostic has been implemented. This system is an Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E)-funded, portable diagnostic package for spectroscopic measurements of ne, Te, ni, Ti,, and vi, which includes both TS and OES. Additionally, a novel digital holography (DH) surface-imaging diagnostic was implemented to measure erosion rates in situ. Results from ex situ DH characterization of stainless steel targets exposed to the ET-Arc source indicated that surface erosion of ~150 nm per shot occurred and an in situ DH characterization of similar targets was planned. The arc-triggering system will be revised and optimized to better synchronize with the laser diagnostics. Details of the reconfigured ET-Arc source are reported here.
