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Materials Science & Technology
The objectives of MSTD are: promote the advancement of materials science in Nuclear Science Technology; support the multidisciplines which constitute it; encourage research by providing a forum for the presentation, exchange, and documentation of relevant information; promote the interaction and communication among its members; and recognize and reward its members for significant contributions to the field of materials science in nuclear technology.
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2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Latest News
Can hydrogen be the transportation fuel in an otherwise nuclear economy?
Let’s face it: The global economy should be powered primarily by nuclear power. And it probably will by the end of this century, with a still-significant assist from renewables and hydro. Once nuclear systems are dominant, the costs come down to where gas is now; and when carbon emissions are reduced to a small portion of their present state, it will become obvious that most other sources are only good in niche settings. I mean, why use small modular reactors to load-follow when they can just produce that power instead of buffering it?
Kimberly A. DeFriend, Brent Espinoza, Brian Patterson
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 51 | Number 4 | May 2007 | Pages 693-700
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST07-A1466
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The sol-gel methods applied in the synthesis of aerogels lead to the formation of a disordered silica network. The resulting aerogel has poor structural definition that leads to poor mechanical properties. The work presented details our efforts to create a new hierarchical mesoporous silica aerogel. These meso-porous aerogels were formed utilizing a templating technique using polystyrene beads with varying diameters, 50 nm to 2 m, dispersed during sol-gel polymerization. The resulting gel was super-critically dried creating a silica aerogel templated with polystyrene beads. The polystyrene beads were then thermal oxidized creating meso-porous silica aerogel monolith. The surface area, pore volume, pore diameter, and mechanical properties of the templated aerogels were determined. Interestingly the mechanical properties of the meso-porous aerogel were significantly improved. These improvements appear to be directly related to the polystyrene bead diameter and loading.