Twenty years after the first radiation portal monitor was installed, PNNL continues supporting the Department of Homeland Security’s efforts to detect and prevent terrorist weapons from crossing our borders.
PNNL’s expertise is the foundation for monitoring technology that identifies trace amounts of radioactive materials and determines whether they are indicative of a nuclear explosion.
Peering through the thick, green glass of a decades-old "hot cell," an expert technician manipulates robotic arms to study highly radioactive waste from Hanford, in support of ongoing cleanup.
Like detectives looking for clues, researchers at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have been working for nearly a decade on ways to identify the "fingerprints" of potential chemical threats.