ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Division Spotlight
Fuel Cycle & Waste Management
Devoted to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle including waste management, worldwide. Division specific areas of interest and involvement include uranium conversion and enrichment; fuel fabrication, management (in-core and ex-core) and recycle; transportation; safeguards; high-level, low-level and mixed waste management and disposal; public policy and program management; decontamination and decommissioning environmental restoration; and excess weapons materials disposition.
Meeting Spotlight
Conference on Nuclear Training and Education: A Biennial International Forum (CONTE 2025)
February 3–6, 2025
Amelia Island, FL|Omni Amelia Island Resort
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Latest News
Article considers incorporation of AI into nuclear power plant operations
The potential application of artificial intelligence to the operation of nuclear power plants is explored in an article published in late December in the Washington Examiner. The article, written by energy and environment reporter Callie Patteson, presents the views of a number of experts, including Yavuz Arik, a strategic energy consultant.
A. I. Miller, D. A. Spagnolo, J. R. DeVore
Nuclear Technology | Volume 112 | Number 2 | November 1995 | Pages 204-213
Technical Paper | Radioisotopes and Isotope | doi.org/10.13182/NT95-A35174
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Tritium removal and heavy water upgrading are essential components of the heavy water-moderated reactor that is the heart of the Advanced Neutron Source (ANS) to be built at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The technologies for these two processes, which are closely related, are reviewed in the context of the ANS requirements. The evolution of the design of the Heavy Water Upgrading and Detritiation Facility (HWUDF) for ANS is outlined, and the final conceptual design is presented. The conceptual design of HWUDF has two main component systems: (a) a front-end combined electrolysis and catalytic exchange (CECE) system and (b) a back-end cryogenic distillation (CD) system. The CECE process consists of a countercurrent exchange column for hydrogen-water exchange over a wetproofed catalyst and electrolysis to convert water into hydrogen. It accepts all the tritiated heavy water streams of the reactor and performs an almost total separation into a protium (light hydrogen) stream containing tritium and deuterium at only natural abundance and a deuterium stream containing all the tritium and almost no protium. The tritium-containing deuterium stream is then processed by a CD unit, which removes over 90% of the tritium and concentrates it to >99% tritium for indefinite storage as a metal tritide. Deuterium gas with a small residue of tritium is recombined with oxygen from the electrolytic cells and returned as heavy water to the reactor.