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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
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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.”
W. Hummel, L. R. van Loon
Nuclear Technology | Volume 128 | Number 3 | December 1999 | Pages 372-387
Technical Paper | Radioactive Waste Management and Disposal | doi.org/10.13182/NT99-A3038
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Radiolytic degradation experiments with acidic ion-exchange resins revealed oxalate and an unidentified ligand X to be the most strongly complexing ligands of the degradation products. The influence of these ligands on the Ni speciation in groundwater and cement pore water of a repository is assessed.A complete and reliable thermodynamic database is built for this case study. Missing stability constants are estimated by chemical reasoning. Subsequent sensitivity analyses show whether these species are important or not. The backdoor approach used in this study addresses the following question: What concentrations must the ligand have to significantly influence the Ni speciation?In the case of oxalate, the concentration necessary to complex 90% Ni will never be exceeded within the repository or in its environment due to precipitation of Ca-oxalate solids. Thus, a negative effect of oxalate on Ni speciation and sorption need not be considered in safety assessments.In the case of ligand X, calculations demonstrate that Ni speciation is highly dependent on geochemical conditions and is occasionally ambiguous due to uncertainties in estimated stability constants. Hints are given to deal with these ambiguities in future safety assessments, and further experimental investigations are proposed to decrease uncertainties when necessary.