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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.”
William L. Ebert, John K. Bates
Nuclear Technology | Volume 104 | Number 3 | December 1993 | Pages 372-384
Technical Paper | Special Issue on Waste Management / Radioactive Waste Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT93-A34898
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Static leach tests have been performed at glass surface area/leachant volume (SA/V) ratios of 10, 340, 2000, and 20 000 m−1 to assess the effects of the SA/V on the mechanism and rate of the glass reaction. Tests were performed using actinide-doped borosilicate waste glasses [Savannah River Laboratory (SRL) 131 and SRL 202] to monitor the distribution of released radionuclides in tests at different SA/V. Solution results show the major effect of the SA/V to be dilution of reaction products. Differences in the pH and silicic acid concentrations attained in tests at different SA/V then affect the reaction rate. Tests at low SA/V maintain leachate pH values similar to the initial leachant, while tests at higher SA/V result in higher leachate pH values being attained due to ion-exchange reactions. Transuranics released as the glass corrodes may exist in the leachate in concentrations far above their solubility limits by sorbing onto colloids, although the colloids may eventually settle out of solution. Transuranics also sorb onto the steel reaction vessel. The glass reaction progress can be characterized by three stages: (a) an initial stage where the reaction rate depends on the leachant pH, (b) an intermediate stage where the reaction slows toward a minimum rate as the leachate solution approaches “saturation,” and (c) a long-term stage where the reaction rate may be affected by the formation of secondary phases that control the solution chemistry. Tests at different SA/V cannot always be compared directly because the dominant reaction step and the observed reaction stage (initial, intermediate, or long-term) may not be the same.