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Printer Friendly Print University of Cambridge and BNFL join forces on Research into Nuclear Waste Immobilisation

University of Cambridge and BNFL join forces on Research into Nuclear Waste Immobilisation

December 18, 2001

A new £1.2 million research collaboration has been launched in a venture between BNFL and the University of Cambridge.

The five-year project will see BNFL invest £1/2 million in the University's Department of Earth Sciences. Additional research funds have been allocated by the Cambridge-MIT Institute (CMI) to link research in Cambridge with MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). The total funding will be over £1.2 million to investigate encapsulation of actinides in ceramics.




Research into the use of ceramics for the immobilisation of actinides is seen as an essential part of BNFL's waste immobilisation portfolio. This will augment the currently used technologies of vitrification (i.e. storing in glass) and cementation (i.e. storing in cement) in the treatment of nuclear waste to allow for long-term storage.

These technologies are seen as vital for the management of used nuclear fuel and for the decommissioning and clean up of nuclear facilities throughout the world.

According to BNFL Project Manager, Charlie Scales:
"Understanding the science underlying the technologies in waste immobilisation is crucial to BNFL as it deals with used nuclear materials. For this reason, we are delighted to be working with colleagues in the University of Cambridge's world-class Earth Sciences Department. We look forward to making progress in research which will help us broaden our capability in immobilisation technology to allow us to continue handling waste safely, efficiently and economically."

The project's inception began when BNFL research specialists met researchers from the Department of Earth Sciences to explore the use of their expertise in the evaluation of mineral phases as possible hosts for the immobilisation of long lived radioactive species.

Commenting on the collaboration Professor Ekhard Salje, Head of Earth Sciences at Cambridge University, said:
"We discovered minerals such as zircon that contain naturally large amounts of radioactive elements. Zircons can be very old (over 4000 million years) which enables us to study the effect of radioactivity over such long periods of time. We must now face the challenge to apply this knowledge to the development of man-made ceramics of similar stability to immobilise existing unwanted radioactive materials. I am looking forward to a close collaboration with BNFL to work towards the solution of one of the most pressing scientific problems of this century."

Cambridge, University of



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