Changing the rules of the game: used fuel studies outside of a remote handling facility

Jon M. Schwantes; Michele Conroy; Timothy G. Lach; Jason M. Lonergan; Kristi L. Pellegrini; J. David Robertson; Richard A. Clark

doi:10.1007/s10967-019-06921-y

Changing the rules of the game: used fuel studies outside of a remote handling facility

Jon M. Schwantes, Michele Conroy, Timothy G. Lach, Jason M. Lonergan, Kristi L. Pellegrini, J. David Robertson, Richard A. Clark

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has leveraged focused ion beam capability at their Category II Nuclear Facility to facilitate nuclear materials analysis and experimentation at the micron scale. For this particular study, micron-size specimens of un-irradiated UO₂ fuel pellets of various enrichments were prepared and irradiated to a burnup equivalent of 8–3700 MWd/MTU. This represents first of its kind study of used fuel investigations outside of a hot cell facility, dramatically minimizing resource requirements through reduction in scale. Results of this study provide insight into the initial production of noble metal phase particles in used nuclear fuel at extremely low burnup levels.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1267-1272
Number of pages	6
Journal	Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry
Volume	322
Issue number	3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-019-06921-y
State	Published - Dec 1 2019
Externally published	Yes

Funding

This work was supported by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD): Nuclear Processing Science Initiative (NPSI). Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is a multi-program national laboratory operated for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) by Battelle Memorial Institute under Contract DE-AC06-76RLO 1830. Most experiments were performed in the PNNL RPL Facility with the RPL Microscopy Quiet Suite, which is outfitted with a FEI Helios 660 FIM/SEM and a JEOL GrandARM300 Aberration Corrected (AC) STEM/TEM. TEM measurements were conducted using a JEOL ARM200 AC-STEM/TEM located in 3410, part of the Physical Sciences Facility (PSF) on campus. All of these instruments are part of PNNL’s Institutional Microscopy Tools. This work was supported by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD): Nuclear Processing Science Initiative (NPSI). Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is a multi-program national laboratory operated for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) by Battelle Memorial Institute under Contract DE-AC06-76RLO 1830. Most experiments were performed in the PNNL RPL Facility with the RPL Microscopy Quiet Suite, which is outfitted with a FEI Helios 660 FIM/SEM and a JEOL GrandARM300 Aberration Corrected (AC) STEM/TEM. TEM measurements were conducted using a JEOL ARM200 AC-STEM/TEM located in 3410, part of the Physical Sciences Facility (PSF) on campus. All of these instruments are part of PNNL’s Institutional Microscopy Tools.

Funders	Funder number
Nuclear Processing Science Initiative
Physical Sciences Facility
U.S. Department of Energy
Battelle	DE-AC06-76RLO 1830
Laboratory Directed Research and Development
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Keywords

Epsilon phase
Focussed ion beam
Noble metal phase
Nuclear materials science
University of Missouri Research Reactor (MURR)
Used nuclear fuel

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10.1007/s10967-019-06921-y

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abstract = "Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has leveraged focused ion beam capability at their Category II Nuclear Facility to facilitate nuclear materials analysis and experimentation at the micron scale. For this particular study, micron-size specimens of un-irradiated UO2 fuel pellets of various enrichments were prepared and irradiated to a burnup equivalent of 8–3700 MWd/MTU. This represents first of its kind study of used fuel investigations outside of a hot cell facility, dramatically minimizing resource requirements through reduction in scale. Results of this study provide insight into the initial production of noble metal phase particles in used nuclear fuel at extremely low burnup levels.",

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Changing the rules of the game: used fuel studies outside of a remote handling facility

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Keywords

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