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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
2025 ANS Annual Conference
June 15–18, 2025
Chicago, IL|Chicago Marriott Downtown
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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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Nuclear fuel cycle reimagined: Powering the next frontiers from nuclear waste
In the fall of 2023, a small Zeno Power team accomplished a major feat: they demonstrated the first strontium-90 heat source in decades—and the first-ever by a commercial company.
Zeno Power worked with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to fabricate and validate this Z1 heat source design at the lab’s Radiochemical Processing Laboratory. The Z1 demonstration heralded renewed interest in developing radioisotope power system (RPS) technology. In early 2025, the heat source was disassembled, and the Sr-90 was returned to the U.S. Department of Energy for continued use.
Satoshi Fukada, Makoto Ueda, Takaaki Izumi, Go Wu, Kazunari Katayama
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 61 | Number 4 | May 2012 | Pages 282-289
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST12-A13581
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This research is performed to determine how gaseous impurities affect the evacuation of tritium from a fusion reactor chamber by using a cryosorption pump. The amounts of H2O and CH4 remaining on activated carbon during repeated cycles between adsorption for evacuation and desorption for regeneration are related to the partial pressures of the H2O and CH4 and to temperature and are correlated in terms of Henry's law. It is experimentally investigated how the impurities remaining on the activated carbon after rough evacuation by elevating the temperature affect the adsorption of H2 and He at cryogenic temperature. The amount of CH4 remaining on activated carbon is smaller than that of H2O, and it was found that the former's effect is comparatively smaller than the latter's. Discussion is made based on the surface coverage and pore distribution that are determined by the BET measurement. An important conclusion is that the bulk of the H2O and CH4 can be released from activated carbon by heating to 373 K.