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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.
L. H. Johnson, D. W. Shoesmith, G. E. Lunansky, M. G. Bailey, P. R. Tremaine
Nuclear Technology | Volume 56 | Number 2 | February 1982 | Pages 238-253
Technical Paper | Radioactive Waste Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT82-A32851
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An integrated experimental approach to mechanistic studies of the leaching and dissolution of irradiated UO2fuel is described. The program includes an investigation of the solubility of the UO2 matrix under thermodynamically well-defined conditions, detailed measurements of the leaching and dissolution of irradiated fuel under simulated disposal conditions, and electrochemical measurements with a novel UO2 electrode to elucidate dissolution mechanisms. Initial experiments show that the solubility of UO2 under alkaline reducing conditions is relatively insensitive to temperature changes, that the leach rates of irradiated fuel are also not strongly temperature dependent, and that surface films on the UO2 fuel may play an important role in the dissolution process. Several aspects of the UO2 matrix dissolution process are now understood, and the approach taken has indicated where future work is needed.
