ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
Standards Program
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Dec 2025
Jul 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
January 2026
Nuclear Technology
December 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
November 2025
Latest News
DNFSB spots possible bottleneck in Hanford’s waste vitrification
Workers change out spent 27,000-pound TSCR filter columns and place them on a nearby storage pad during a planned outage in 2023. (Photo: DOE)
While the Department of Energy recently celebrated the beginning of hot commissioning of the Hanford Site’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP), which has begun immobilizing the site’s radioactive tank waste in glass through vitrification, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board has reported a possible bottleneck in waste processing. According to the DNFSB, unless current systems run efficiently, the issue could result in the interruption of operations at the WTP’s Low-Activity Waste Facility, where waste vitrification takes place.
During operations, the LAW Facility will process an average of 5,300 gallons of tank waste per day, according to Bechtel, the contractor leading design, construction, and commissioning of the WTP. That waste is piped to the facility after being treated by Hanford’s Tanks Side Cesium Removal (TSCR) system, which filters undissolved solid material and removes cesium from liquid waste.
According to a November 7 activity report by the DNFSB, the TSCR system may not be able to produce waste feed fast enough to keep up with the LAW Facility’s vitrification rate.
Yan Qizhen, Zhaochun Zhang, Guo Haibo, Wang Yang
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 80 | Number 2 | February 2024 | Pages 178-195
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2023.2213811
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Tungsten/graphene composite was developed and demonstrated to have good mechanical and thermal properties. Density functional theory calculations were performed to investigate elastic constants, elastic anisotropies and isotropic elastic moduli, thermodynamic properties and minimum thermal conductivity of tungsten/graphene with and without a helium-vacancy pair, and tungsten/graphane and tungsten/ditungsten carbide (tungsten/W2C) composites. The results show that tungsten/graphene composite has more toughness when compared with pure tungsten metal. It is noticed that the minimum thermal conductivity of tungsten/graphene composite is higher, introducing a potential application in heat dissipation at high temperatures. We give an honest appraisal of the anisotropic and isotropic (polycrystalline) elastic properties of tungsten/graphene, tungsten/graphane, and tungsten/W2C carbide composites. In addition, the results show that the graphene layer is a strong trap for the He atom, while He affinity to the graphene layer is weaker to a single vacancy. The formation of the He-vacancy pair due to trapping effects near the W/graphene interface will help to reduce the concentration of impurities and defects in the tungsten matrix and maintain the inherent heat dissipation properties under irradiation.
