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2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 8–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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Japan gets new U for enrichment as global power and fuel plans grow
President Trump is in Japan today, with a visit with new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on the agenda. Takaichi, who took office just last week as Japan’s first female prime minister, has already spoken in favor of nuclear energy and of accelerating the restart of Japan’s long-shuttered power reactors, as Reuters and others have reported. Much of the uranium to power those reactors will be enriched at Japan’s lone enrichment facility—part of Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd.’s Rokkasho fuel complex—which accepted its first delivery of fresh uranium hexafluoride (UF₆) in 11 years earlier this month.
K. Wisshak, F. Käppeler, G. Reffo, F. Fabbri
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 86 | Number 2 | February 1984 | Pages 168-183
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE84-A18199
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The neutron capture widths of s-wave resonances in 56Fe (27.7 keV), 58Ni (15.4 keV), and 60Ni (12.5 keV) have been determined using a setup completely different from previous experiments. A pulsed 3-MV Van de Graaff accelerator and a kinematically collimated neutron beam, produced via the 7Li(p, n) reaction, were used in the experiments. Capture gamma rays were observed by three Moxon-Rae detectors with graphite, bismuth-graphite, and bismuth converters, respectively. The samples were positioned at a neutron flight path of only 9 cm. Thus, events due to capture of resonance-scattered neutrons in the detectors or in surrounding materials are completely discriminated by their additional time of flight. The high neutron flux at the sample position allowed the use of very thin samples (0.15 to 0.45 mm), avoiding large multiple scattering corrections. The data obtained with the individual detectors were corrected for the efficiency of the respective converter materials. For that purpose, detailed theoretical calculations of the capture gamma-ray spectra of the measured isotopes and of gold, which was used as a standard, were performed. The final results are Γγ(27.7 keV, 56Fe) = 1.06 ± 0.05 eV; Γγ(15.4 keV, 58Ni) = 1.53 ± 0.10 eV; and Γγ(12.5 keV, 60Ni) = 2.92 ± 0.19 eV. The accuracy obtained with the present experimental method represents an improvement by a factor 3 to 6 compared to previous experiments. The investigated s-wave resonances contribute 10 to 40% to the total capture rate of the respective isotopes in a typical fast reactor.