ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
Latest Magazine Issues
Mar 2026
Jan 2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
April 2026
Nuclear Technology
February 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
IAEA project aims to develop polymer irradiation model
The International Atomic Energy Agency has launched a new coordinated research project (CRP) aimed at creating a database of polymer-radiation interactions in the next five years with the long-term goal of using the database to enable machine learning–based predictive models.
Radiation-induced modifications are widely applicable across a range of fields including healthcare, agriculture, and environmental applications, and exposure to radiation is a major factor when considering materials used at nuclear power plants.
Kazuhiro Kobayashi, Takumi Hayashi, Hirofumi Nakamura, Toshihiko Yamanishi, Yasuhisa Oya, Kenji Okuno
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 52 | Number 3 | October 2007 | Pages 696-700
Technical Paper | The Technology of Fusion Energy - Tritium, Safety, and Environment | doi.org/10.13182/FST07-A1571
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In a fusion reactor of high safety and acceptability, safe confinement of tritium is one of key issues for the fusion reactor. Tritium should be well-controlled and not excessively released to the environment and to prevent workers from excess exposure. Especially, the hot cell and tritium facilities of ITER will use various construction materials such as the organic materials. The hot cell is maintained in the dry atmosphere very much, and the maintenance of the apparatus contaminated by high concentration tritium is assumed. Therefore, the hot cell may be contaminated by high concentration tritium. Since the epoxy paint which will be used as a paint on the wall of the hot cell was contaminated by tritium compared with metal material, it is very important to study the efficient decontamination of the epoxy paint from a viewpoint of the protection the excess exposure of the workers. For tritium decontamination processes, so-called 'soaking' effect is important. This effect is based on sorption of tritiated water vapor on the materials and subsequent desorption from them. Therefore, in order to develop for the optimal decontamination technique, the decontamination experiment was carried out as a function of water vapor concentration in the purge gas (N2) for epoxy paint, acrylic resin and butyl rubber. As the result, the desorption rate for the organic materials was evaluated by purging gas of N2, and then furthermore, the residual tritium on the organic materials was quickly removed by adding water vapor in purging gas. The effect of adding water vapor was found on the decontamination for the organic materials.