Development Of A Doctoral Radiochemistry Program At The University Of Texas At Austin (original) (raw)
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Educational Achievements In Nuclear And Radiochemistry At The University Of Texas At Austin
2006 Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings
Over the last three years we have developed a very robust nuclear and radiochemistry program at The University of Texas at Austin. The cornerstone of support was the DOE Radiochemistry Educational Award Program (REAP) which was awarded from 2002-2005. A second award for the period of 2005-2008 was just received. This award has enabled us to support many educational activates from vanguard classroom instruction, to laboratory enhancements, to research activities at the graduate and undergraduate levels. Both traditional radiochemistry and advanced topics in nuclear instrumentation have been supported.
2012
Budget cuts and the oscillating public debates on the benefits of nuclear research reactor facilities are a continuous threat to many nuclear institutions. University affiliated institutions often face additional problems if their facilities offer sufficient scientific challenge and if an education in nuclear sciences provide students a sound outlook for a professional career. Such discussions may be an excuse for non-fulfilment of vacancies and reduced priority in the academic curriculum. Universities tend to reallocate their funds to more contemporary sciences such as molecular biology and nanotechnology. Their choices are based on relevance, quality viability and productivity. Relevance is often measured on the basis of external funding of research programs as well as on career opportunities for students. However, the areas with opportunities for external funding are largely determined by socioeconomic developments, sometimes even at the (inter)national political level. The thema...
Use of Sequential Extraction Procedures for the Natural Attentuation of Radionuclides
2003
SEPs were utilized on the untreated and stabilized tuff and sediment materials from the PRS 21011(k) site at the Los Alamos National Laboratory to determine the distribution of cesium and strontium across the geochemical fractions. This data would be used to assess the potential mobility of the Cs-137 and Sr-90 in the soil environment and bioavailability in the sediment and tuff materials present at the site and to assess the effect of stabilization/solidification (S/S) treatment on these properties. The distribution of the Cs-137 and total Cs were similar among the SEP fractions, suggesting that Cs-137 deposited by the treated liquid radioactive waste effluent respeciated into the same geochemical fractions as the naturally occurring Cs in the affected materials. The distribution of total Sr in the tuff material was similar to that of Sr-90, while the distribution of total Sr in the sediment and sediment/tuff materials were dissimilar. The higher mobility and bioavailablity of the ...
Resurgence of a Nation’s Radiation Science Driven by Its Nuclear Industry Needs
Applied Sciences
This article describes the radiation facilities and associated sample preparation, management, and analysis equipment currently in place at the Dalton Cumbrian Facility, a facility which opened in 2011 to support the UK’s nuclear industry. Examples of measurements performed using these facilities are presented to illustrate their versatility and the breadth of research they make possible. Results are presented from research which furthers our understanding of radiation damage to polymeric materials, radiolytic yield of gaseous products in situations relevant to nuclear materials, radiation chemistry in light water reactor cooling systems, material chemistry relevant to immobilization of nuclear waste, and radiation-induced corrosion of fuel cladding elements. Applications of radiation chemistry relevant to health care are also described. Research concerning the mechanisms of radioprotection by dietary carotenoids is reported. An ongoing open-labware project to develop a suite of mod...
In Situ Methods for Quantifying Specific Radionuclides
IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, 2000
Field spectrometry methods utilizing high resolution detectors can be used to quantify the concentration of radionuclides in soil, and the resulting external exposure rate. Advantages of the method compared to soil sampling followed by laboratory analysis are greater speed of analysis, integration of inhomogeneities of radionuclide areal distribution, and the immediate availability of data to guide further field studies. A disadvantage is that the calculation of results depends upon some knowledge or assumption about the distribution of radionuclides with depth in soil. The procedures necessary to calibrate and use a field spectrometer are discussed, and a practical guide is developed. Examples of uses of field spectrometry are the quantitation of complex mixtures of radionuclides in soil, the calculation of the resulting external gamma exposure rate apportioned by radionuclide, geochemical studies, preoperational and continuing studies at nuclear reactor sites, and the identification of short-lived, noble gas radionuclides in reactor plumes.
Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, 2012
Ion-exchange resins and activated charcoal beds are employed for purification of the cooling water that is pumped through the core of pool type nuclear research reactors. Once expended, these media are replaced and become radioactive wastes that contain low concentrations of long-lived fission and activation products, uranium isotopes and transuranium elements. Determination of the radioactive inventory is of paramount importance in the management of such radioactive wastes, which, besides high-energy photon emitters that can be identified and quantified directly by gamma-ray spectrometry, also contain pure alpha, pure beta and low-energy photon emitters whose quantitative determination require radiochemical separation. These later are collectively known as difficult to measure (DTM) radionuclides. A characterization program embracing the DTM radionuclides is currently in progress for spent ion-exchange resins and activated charcoal beds that were definitively withdrawn from the water cleanup system of the IEA-R1 nuclear research reactor. Radiochemical methods used in the characterization program include separations with specific anionic resins, chromatographic extractions and co-precipitation, which enabled the measurement of the activity concentrations of 90 Sr, 234 U, 235 U, 238 U, 238 Pu, 239?240 Pu, 241 Pu, 241 Am and 244 Cm. An enhanced retention of uranium and transuranium elements was observed in the activated charcoal compared to the ion-exchange resins as a result of the tendency of actinides to undergo hydrolysis in aqueous solutions.
THE DETERMINATION OF RADIONUCLIDES RELATED TO NUCLEAR POWER RESEARCH AT THE REACTOR LABORATORY
V.I.Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytic Chemistry, Moscow, 1991
Three case histories of applications of radionuclide analysis in research related to nuclear power production are described. These are the use of niobium as a neutron dosimeter, determination of some non 'gamma-emitting radionuclides from the wall of a primary circuit tube and the use of radionuclide ratios for the determination of the time which a piece of steel have been in contact with the primary circuit water in a nuclear power plant.
Atomic Energy, 1997
The principal sources of plutonium and americium entering the environment are tests of nuclear weapons, the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power station, and discharges from radiochemical factories. It is necessary to monitor the contamination of soil these produce from the levels caused by global radioactive fallout. The 241pu content in plutonium contaminating soil can vary by an appreciable factor (see ). This determines the contribution of 241Anl to the total c~ activity of the soil or of a sample prepared from it.
2015
The Joint Research Centre of Ispra is one of the research Sites belonging to the European Commission, Directorate General JRC. It was created in the late ‘50s, in order to steer European research on nuclear industry. It currently hosts numerous nuclear facilities, some are still in operation, while the remainder are in a position of safe shutdown or in the process of decommissioning. One of the first JRC-ISPRA’s radiological facilities to be released from regulatory controls, in 2010, was the Radiochemistry Hot Laboratory (RCHL). This facility has been used, since the sixties, to perform radiochemistry separation and analyses on many radioactive samples obtained through irradiation in other JRC-ISPRA’s nuclear facilities, including the two research reactors ISPRA-1 and ESSOR. Radioisotopes found in RCHL during its decommissioning process were alpha, beta and gamma emitters, including the majority of the most interesting hard-to-measure radionuclides. An extensive radiological charac...
Radionuclide Decay and In-growth Technical Basis Document
2003
The purpose of this report is to assess the decay and in-growth of radionuclides from the radionuclide source term (RST) deposited by underground nuclear weapons tests conducted at the NTS from 1951 through 1992. A priority of the Underground Test Area (UGTA) project, administered by the Environmental Restoration Division of NNSA/NV, was to determine as accurately as possible a measure of the total radionuclide inventory for calculation of the RST deposited in the subsurface at the Nevada Test Site (NTS). The motivation for the development of a total radionuclide inventory is driven by a need to calculate the amount of radioactivity that will move away from the nuclear test cavities over time, referred to as the hydrologic source term (HST). The HST is a subset of the RST and must be calculated using knowledge of the geochemistry and hydrology of the subsurface environment. This will serve the regulatory process designed to protect human health from exposures to contaminated groundwater.