Radiochemical Processing Laboratory
A national asset with multiple missions in the nuclear sciences
Working closely with fellow national laboratories, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory advances U.S. national security missions by fabricating Joint Actinide Shock Physics Experimental Research (JASPER) targets at the Radiochemical Processing Laboratory. Funded by the National Nuclear Security Administration, this collaborative effort helps scientists study and better understand nuclear material behaviors and properties under extreme conditions.
(Photo by Andrea Starr | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)
The Radiochemical Processing Laboratory (RPL) is a hazard category 2 nonreactor nuclear research facility that has supported the nation’s most critical nuclear science missions for more than seven decades. Established in 1953 during the Hanford Site’s early nuclear era, this unique facility is recognized for its contributions to the Manhattan Project and Cold War, and it continues to play a vital role in U.S. national security, energy, and science missions.
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), and the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science are stewarding the future of RPL and investing to enhance its readiness for current and emerging mission needs. From 2021 through 2031, the NNSA Defense Programs Office and the Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Office are sponsoring the RPL Extended Life Plan, which will extend the service life of the facility to 2045 while stewarding foundational technical competencies in nuclear material production and processing.
This investment preserves the unique technical capabilities required for nuclear material production, processing, and analysis. Through the Athena project, RPL provides modern equipment and hands-on training that builds expertise and leadership in nuclear fuel reprocessing and nonproliferation technologies. RPL also supports safe and accelerated Hanford cleanup operations through its Radioactive Waste Test Platform, which provides research-scale, integrated systems for testing waste treatment technologies under representative radiological conditions. This platform is currently being used to support direct-feed, low-activity waste operations, generating critical data to reduce technical and operational risk for full-scale facilities such as the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant low-activity waste melter.
Building on this foundation, RPL is expanding its Radioactive Waste Test Platform capabilities—with support from the DOE Office of Environmental Management’s Technology Operations Office—to include a grout testing capability, enabling rapid evaluation of alternative waste treatment and immobilization pathways. This 2026 expansion will provide significant value for mission acceleration, flexibility, and risk reduction across current and future complex cleanup missions.
As national security, energy, and science priorities evolve, RPL’s specialized infrastructure and workforce will continue to support a broad portfolio of missions—including nuclear nonproliferation, stockpile stewardship, advanced nuclear energy research, legacy waste cleanup, and isotope production. RPL represents the impactful work that PNNL delivers from science to application, supporting radioactive waste processing, research on novel nuclear fuels, tritium production for defense programs, and workforce and facility investments for plutonium processing.
Located in Hanford’s 300 Area in Washington state, RPL is the nation’s sole radionuclide lab certified by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization’s International Monitoring System to process air particulate samples for radioactivity detection. RPL is distinctive in its ability to conduct experiments involving combinations of tritium, plutonium, and uranium, making PNNL one of only three national laboratories in DOE’s national laboratory system authorized to receive and analyze used nuclear fuel rods.
Research opportunities at RPL continue to grow through sustained investments in advanced instrumentation and through RPL’s participation as a partner institution in DOE’s Nuclear Science User Facilities program. RPL’s long-standing contributions to peaceful nuclear research were recognized in 2017, when the American Nuclear Society designated the facility a nuclear historic landmark.
Originally completed in 1953 as a 116,000-square-foot facility, RPL was designed to evaluate, develop, and integrate technologies addressing applied engineering challenges involving radiological materials. In the early 1960s, the laboratory expanded its capabilities with the addition of the High-Level Radiochemistry Facility and the Shielded Analytical Laboratory, introducing extensive hot-cell operations that remain central to its mission today.
RPL plays a critical role in PNNL’s national security mission. Laboratory staff produce sealed nuclear material sources used to test nonproliferation instruments and methods.
Key radiochemistry capabilities at RPL include process development, chemical and physical separations, tritium processing, spectroscopic online process monitoring, radiological nuclear resonance spectroscopy, and nuclear forensics. Capabilities to support RPL’s nuclear materials characterization mission include postirradiation examination, microanalysis, used nuclear fuel research, reactor dosimetry, and nuclear nonproliferation monitoring.
From characterizing low-enriched uranium fuel and preparing plutonium sealed sources for radiation detection to delivering scientific solutions for nuclear waste disposal, RPL continues to strengthen PNNL’s leadership in nuclear science and technology. Partners benefit from RPL’s combination of high-activity radiological facilities, specialized hot-cell and analytical capabilities, and an experienced scientific and operations workforce—in-depth expertise offered by few facilities in the United States within a national laboratory research environment.
