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Division Spotlight
Isotopes & Radiation
Members are devoted to applying nuclear science and engineering technologies involving isotopes, radiation applications, and associated equipment in scientific research, development, and industrial processes. Their interests lie primarily in education, industrial uses, biology, medicine, and health physics. Division committees include Analytical Applications of Isotopes and Radiation, Biology and Medicine, Radiation Applications, Radiation Sources and Detection, and Thermal Power Sources.
Meeting Spotlight
2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
Standards Program
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
G7 pledges support for nuclear at Italy meeting
The Group of Seven (G7) recommitted its support for nuclear energy in the countries that opt to use it at a Ministerial Meeting on Climate in Italy last month.
In a statement following the April meeting, the group committed to support multilateral efforts to strengthen the resilience of nuclear supply chains, referencing the goal set by 25 countries during last year’s COP28 climate conference in Dubai to triple global nuclear generating capacity by 2050.
L. Sudderth, D. Perez-Nunez, D. Keiser, S. McDeavitt
Nuclear Technology | Volume 202 | Number 1 | April 2018 | Pages 81-93
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2017.1420336
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A fluidized bed chemical vapor deposition (FB-CVD) system with an inverted reactor was used to develop barrier coatings of zirconium nitride on the surface of U 8 wt% Mo microspheres in order to examine the resulting coating structure and composition, as well as to evaluate the effects of certain process parameters on the coating properties. The process utilized the metal-organic precursor tetrakis(dimethylamino)zirconium heated to 51°C ± 2°C. Time-dependent studies analyzed the coating produced after 2 to 8 days of operation at 100 mL/min precursor carrier flow rate and 500 mL/min fluidization flow rate. Flow-rate–dependent studies produced coated samples using a total flow rate of 600 mL/min, with the precursor carrier flow rate ranging from 100 to 300 mL/min and the fluidization flow rate adjusted accordingly. Ultrahigh-purity argon was used for the precursor carrier and fluidization gas. The CVD reaction was carried out at 280°C ± 10°C with precursor transport tubes heated to 60°C to 75°C. The zirconium-based coatings were manufactured up to 2.2 ± 0.3 µm thick after 2 days of deposition. The estimated coating thickness was not significantly impacted by extending the duration of the deposition process or increasing the precursor carrier gas flow rate. Imaging of the microsphere cross sections provided evidence of uranium oxide, zirconium oxide, and zirconium nitride layers formed within the coating, with nitrogen content becoming more dominant farther from the bulk U-Mo surface. Certain modifications to the process would improve the results, including installing the system inside an inert atmosphere to limit oxygen contamination and higher resolution analyses to better determine coating structure, and finally, performance of a kinetic study of the coating process, particularly over the first 24 h in which the majority of the deposition was suspected to have occurred by enabling partial powder removal during FB-CVD operation to analyze samples from different points within a single experiment.