From Vikings to Vitrification: How ancient Swedish hillfort glass informs radioactive waste disposal
Presented by Carolyn Pearce
Watch the Seminar
Carolyn Pearce describes this multidisciplinary glass research with DOE, Washington State University, Smithsonian Institution, and international partners.
About the Speaker
Carolyn Pearce is a chemist specializing in geosciences at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and is director the Interfacial Dynamics in Radioactive Environments and Materials (IDREAM) Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC). She is part of an international research team investigating vitrification at an ancient hillfort in Sweden and how the glass in that hillfort wall might inform the modern process of turning radioactive waste into glass for safe, long-term storage. This is part of her research to characterize materials for radioactive waste processing and storage, and to determine reaction mechanisms that affect radionuclide stability in waste forms and subsurface environments. Carolyn holds a joint appointment in the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences at Washington State University and is an honorary professor with the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Manchester, United Kingdom. She earned her PhD in color and polymer chemistry at the University of Leeds.