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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 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. R. Divine
Nuclear Technology | Volume 18 | Number 2 | May 1973 | Pages 171-176
Technical Paper | A Review of Plutonium Utilization in Thermal Reactors / Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT73-A31285
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In the next five to ten years, the use of plutonium-enriched fuels is expected to increase significantly. As is the case with irradiated uranium-only fuels, radiation levels within the reactor system can be expected to increase in the event of a severe fuel failure. The in-reactor dissolution of mixed-oxide UO2-PuO2 fuels has been reviewed with consideration of past experience and potentially useful decontamination solutions. The currently most suitable decontamination agent of mixed oxides is a solution of buffered oxalic acid/hydrogen peroxide/gluconic acid (OPG).
