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Fusion Energy
This division promotes the development and timely introduction of fusion energy as a sustainable energy source with favorable economic, environmental, and safety attributes. The division cooperates with other organizations on common issues of multidisciplinary fusion science and technology, conducts professional meetings, and disseminates technical information in support of these goals. Members focus on the assessment and resolution of critical developmental issues for practical fusion energy applications.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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General Kenneth Nichols and the Manhattan Project
Nichols
The Oak Ridger has published the latest in a series of articles about General Kenneth D. Nichols, the Manhattan Project, and the 1954 Atomic Energy Act. The series has been produced by Nichols’ grandniece Barbara Rogers Scollin and Oak Ridge (Tenn.) city historian David Ray Smith. Gen. Nichols (1907–2000) was the district engineer for the Manhattan Engineer District during the Manhattan Project.
As Smith and Scollin explain, Nichols “had supervision of the research and development connected with, and the design, construction, and operation of, all plants required to produce plutonium-239 and uranium-235, including the construction of the towns of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Richland, Washington. The responsibility of his position was massive as he oversaw a workforce of both military and civilian personnel of approximately 125,000; his Oak Ridge office became the center of the wartime atomic energy’s activities.”
Katsuyoshi Tatenuma, Yukio Hishinuma, Satoshi Tomatsuri, Kousaburo Ohashi, Yoshiharu Usui
Nuclear Technology | Volume 124 | Number 2 | November 1998 | Pages 147-164
Technical Paper | Decontamination/Decommissioning | doi.org/10.13182/NT98-A2915
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A new gas-phase decontamination technology is developed based on gaseous reactions utilizing the volatile properties of the carbonyl and fluoric compounds of radioactive transition elements and actinides (corrosion products, fission products, and transuranium) on a material's surface. The feasibility of this new technology is determined by removing nonradioactive (Co, Cr, Ni, Re, Mo, Mn, Ru, and Zn) and radioactive (60Co, 63Ni, and 103Ru) nuclide transition elements as gaseous forms under high CO pressure (50 to 200 atm) and high temperature (~350°C). Experiments involving U and using fluoric gases are also performed. For radioactive nuclides existing in an oxide layer of stainless steel, pretreatment with supercritical CO2 + I2 + H2O is used to remove the oxide layer completely, and by the subsequent gaseous reaction, 95 to 99% of 60Co is removed from the layer by CO gas treatment at a pressure of 200 atm. The plasma treatment using fluorine gas results in U being removed with high efficiency (~60%) after only 5 min, even at a reduced pressure of 1 Torr and at room temperature. When the carbonyl and fluoric species generated from a nontoxic gas mixture (1 Torr) of CF4 and O2 is used, U and 60Co are removed simultaneously with high removal efficiencies of 80 and 100% for 60Co and U, respectively. The data provide evidence that chemically reactive plasma treatment is available as a gas-phase decontamination method that can be conducted using nontoxic gases under safe and mild conditions such as reduced pressure, shorter time periods, and ambient temperature. Finally, a fluoric chemical reaction can be used to remove solid U deposits by converting them to gaseous U compounds at room temperature and without using plasma treatment. The pressure of ClF3 gradually affects the higher removal efficiency of U, and the removal efficiency is >90% under the conditions of 30 min and >100 Torr. The results verify that chemical reactions involving carbonylation and fluorination reactions can be utilized for gas-phase decontamination, and the potential for this new idea for decontamination is affirmed.If gas-phase decontamination technology is further developed, it will be not only convenient but also economically advantageous because decontaminating and treating the large volume of nuclear wastes - especially nonincinerable radioactive wastes - are currently very difficult.
