A new longer-lasting sodium-ion battery design is much more durable and reliable in lab tests. After 300 charging cycles, it retained 90 percent of its charging capacity.
Two PNNL interns are behind recent innovation in real-time testing and continuous monitoring for pH and the concentration of chemicals of interest in chemical solutions; outcomes have applicability not only to nuclear, but to industries.
Three unused, 48,000-pound stainless steel canisters arrived at PNNL, bringing the chance to deepen research in spent nuclear fuel storage and transportation.
An international team used PNNL microscopy to answer questions about how uranium dioxide—used in nuclear power plants—might behave in long-term storage.
A new radiation-resistant material for the efficient capture of noble gases xenon and krypton makes it safer and cheaper to recycle spent nuclear fuel.
PNNL and Argonne researchers developed and tested a chemical process that successfully captures radioactive byproducts from used nuclear fuel so they could be sent to advanced reactors for destruction while also producing electrical power.
It’s hot in there! PNNL researchers take a close, but nonradioactive, look at metal particle formation in a nuclear fuel surrogate material. What they found will help fill knowledge gaps and could lead to better nuclear fuel designs.
Researchers used novel methods to safely create and analyze plutonium samples. The approaches could prove influential in future studies of the radioactive material, benefitting research in legacy, national security and nuclear fuels.
In fast-neutron reactors, fuel is sealed in ~7 millimeter diameter steel tubes called cladding. When a high-energy "fast" neutron strikes an atom in the steel, it can knock the atom out of place, like a cue ball striking another billiard ball. This leaves two types of damage in the metal: an empty spot where the atom was, and the displaced atom wedged between other atoms. Over time, these defects typically drive undesirable rearrangement of the microstructure, potentially reducing the life of the cladding.