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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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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. L. Gallagher, L. D. Green, R. T. Marchese
Nuclear Technology | Volume 10 | Number 4 | April 1971 | Pages 406-411
Technical Paper | Symposium on Reactor Containment Spray System Technology / Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT71-A16249
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In many pressurized water reactors, containment spray is used to remove fission products, particularly iodine, from the containment atmosphere following a loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA). Elemental iodine is absorbed into the spray drops as they fall through the containment. To achieve permanent removal of the iodine from the containment atmosphere, the spray solution contains ∼0.2M boric acid and ∼0.15M NaOH. This paper describes the spray additive system’s design and criteria used in large nuclear power plants to ensure that the containment spray solution can perform its iodine removal function.