A multi-institute team develops an imaging method that reveals how uranium dioxide (UO2) reacts with air. This could improve nuclear fuel development and opens a new domain for imaging the group of radioactive elements known as actinides.
Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories have joined forces to reduce costs and improve the reliability of hydrogen fueling stations.
Researchers apply numerical simulations to understand more about a sturdy material and how its basic structure responds to and resists radiation. The outcomes could help guide development of the resilient materials of the future.
His research is dedicated to the development of experimental tools and expertise critical for controlled synthesis and characterization of complex oxides, and gaining deep understanding of structure-composition-function relationships.
A radioactive chemical called pertechnetate is a bad actor when it’s in nuclear waste tanks. But researchers at PNNL and the University of South Florida have a new lead on how to selectively separate it from the nuclear waste for treatment.
Patricia Huestis, a collaborator in the Interfacial Dynamics in Radioactive Environments and Materials (IDREAM) Energy Frontier Research Center, has been awarded the DOE Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) award.
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.
Josef "Pepa" Matyas, a materials scientist in PNNL’s Nuclear Sciences Division, has been elected a fellow of the American Ceramic Society (ACerS). He will be recognized at the ACerS annual meeting on September 30, 2019, in Portland, Ore.
Installing new access holes (up to 6 feet in diameter) could reduce the overall time and cost to retrieve waste from Hanford's underground storage tanks, according to a structural analysis of the tank domes by PNNL and Becht Engineering.
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.
