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.
Division Spotlight
Decommissioning & Environmental Sciences
The mission of the Decommissioning and Environmental Sciences (DES) Division is to promote the development and use of those skills and technologies associated with the use of nuclear energy and the optimal management and stewardship of the environment, sustainable development, decommissioning, remediation, reutilization, and long-term surveillance and maintenance of nuclear-related installations, and sites. The target audience for this effort is the membership of the Division, the Society, and the public at large.
Meeting Spotlight
2021 Student Conference
April 8–10, 2021
Virtual Meeting
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Feb 2021
Jul 2020
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
March 2021
Nuclear Technology
February 2021
Fusion Science and Technology
January 2021
Latest News
Researchers report fastest purification of astatine-211 needed for targeted cancer therapy
Astatine-211 recovery from bismuth metal using a chromatography system. Unlike bismuth, astatine-211 forms chemical bonds with ketones.
In a recent study, Texas A&M University researchers have described a new process to purify astatine-211, a promising radioactive isotope for targeted cancer treatment. Unlike other elaborate purification methods, their technique can extract astatine-211 from bismuth in minutes rather than hours, which can greatly reduce the time between production and delivery to the patient.
“Astatine-211 is currently under evaluation as a cancer therapeutic in clinical trials. But the problem is that the supply chain for this element is very limited because only a few places worldwide can make it,” said Jonathan Burns, research scientist in the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station’s Nuclear Engineering and Science Center. “Texas A&M University is one of a handful of places in the world that can make astatine-211, and we have delineated a rapid astatine-211 separation process that increases the usable quantity of this isotope for research and therapeutic purposes.”
The researchers added that this separation method will bring Texas A&M one step closer to being able to provide astatine-211 for distribution through the Department of Energy’s Isotope Program’s National Isotope Development Center as part of the University Isotope Network.
Details on the chemical reaction to purify astatine-211 are in the journal Separation and Purification Technology.
J.-M. Noterdaeme, L.-G. Eriksson, M. Mantsinen, M.-L. Mayoral, D. Van Eester, J. Mailloux, C. Gormezano, T. T. C. Jones
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 53 | Number 4 | May 2008 | Pages 1103-1151
Technical Paper | Special Issue on Joint European Torus (jet) | dx.doi.org/10.13182/FST08-A1749
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The physics studies of the three "heating" systems that are installed on JET are reviewed. Results from the beginning of JET up to now are presented with some emphasis on the more recent ones. The systems were used not only for heating, where JET has laid the groundwork to qualify them for heating the next generation of machines to ignition, but also increasingly as tools to control the plasma. This role, already exploited on JET, will become more and more important in the next machine, since main heating will be provided by the alpha-particle heating and one will have to rely on the heating systems to control the plasma during the burn.
