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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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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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ANS joins others in seeking to discuss SNF/HLW impasse
The American Nuclear Society joined seven other organizations to send a letter to Energy Secretary Christopher Wright on July 8, asking to meet with him to discuss “the restoration of a highly functioning program to meet DOE’s legal responsibility to manage and dispose of the nation’s commercial and legacy defense spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level radioactive waste (HLW).”
Bernhard Blumenthal
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 2 | Number 4 | July 1957 | Pages 407-426
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE57-A25406
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Several of the contaminants of uranium can be removed or controlled by vacuum melting and liquation. The lower limits of carbon content which can be attained by liquation in urania crucibles are 225 to 250 ppm at 1195°C, 190 to 225 ppm at 1150°C, and 170 ppm at 1138°C. In magnesia crucibles the reaction 3 MgO + UC → UO2 + CO + 3 Mg proceeds to the right in a high vacuum resulting in incomplete carbon removal. Oxygen and nitrogen are rapidly removed by liquation and contents of less than 10 ppm are readily obtained. Iron and silicon are not removed by a simple melting and liquation process. Various crucible materials were investigated and the effect of addition agents such as nitrogen, tantalum, titanium, and zirconium was studied. Under optimum vacuum melting conditions a metal is produced that will contain no more than 130 to 200 ppm total impurities.