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Decommissioning & Environmental Sciences
The mission of the Decommissioning and Environmental Sciences (DES) Division is to promote the development and use of those skills and technologies associated with the use of nuclear energy and the optimal management and stewardship of the environment, sustainable development, decommissioning, remediation, reutilization, and long-term surveillance and maintenance of nuclear-related installations, and sites. The target audience for this effort is the membership of the Division, the Society, and the public at large.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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Latest News
First astatine-labeled compound shipped in the U.S.
The Department of Energy’s National Isotope Development Center (NIDC) on March 31 announced the successful long-distance shipment in the United States of a biologically active compound labeled with the medical radioisotope astatine-211 (At-211). Because previous shipments have included only the “bare” isotope, the NIDC has described the development as “unleashing medical innovation.”
Benjamin E. Harvey (Univ of Birmingham), Lindsay McMillan (Univ of Birmingham/Mott MacDonald), Alan W. Herbert (Univ of Birmingham)
Proceedings | 16th International High-Level Radioactive Waste Management Conference (IHLRWM 2017) | Charlotte, NC, April 9-13, 2017 | Pages 273-280
Colloids can potentially enhance the transport of radionuclides in groundwater, meaning radionuclides could travel further than would normally be predicted by solute-only transport modelling. To develop understanding, potential radionuclide transport processes are investigated. Colloid-Facilitated Radionuclide Transport is investigated as part of the Colloid Formation and Migration (CFM) experiment at the Grimsel Test Site in Switzerland, where in-situ migration experiments have investigated the transport of tracers, bentonite colloids and radionuclides at a variety of flow velocities in a shear zone within fractured granodiorite.
This paper presents a transport model that aims to replicate the transport of tracers, colloids and americium in two different experiments using consistent parameters. Inverse modelling has been used to describe the hydraulic properties of the shear zone. Flexible transport equations are then used to simulate contaminant transport. The model is able to replicate the breakthrough curves for colloids and americium across two experiments with different dipole flow fields using consistent parameters. The parameter values used to describe colloid attachment and americium desorption are within the ranges used by other models in the CFM programme, but are different to ones generated by laboratory desorption experiments. It is planned to extend the model to other radionuclides in the future.
