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
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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
Jul 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
September 2025
Nuclear Technology
August 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Deep Space: The new frontier of radiation controls
In commercial nuclear power, there has always been a deliberate tension between the regulator and the utility owner. The regulator fundamentally exists to protect the worker, and the utility, to make a profit. It is a win-win balance.
From the U.S. nuclear industry has emerged a brilliantly successful occupational nuclear safety record—largely the result of an ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) process that has driven exposure rates down to what only a decade ago would have been considered unthinkable. In the U.S. nuclear industry, the system has accomplished an excellent, nearly seamless process that succeeds to the benefit of both employee and utility owner.
K. Kotoh, M. Tanaka, Y. Nakamura, T. Sakamoto, Y. Asakura, T. Uda, T. Sugiyama
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 54 | Number 2 | August 2008 | Pages 411-414
Technical Paper | Isotope Separation | doi.org/10.13182/FST08-A1842
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Focusing on synthetic zeolites that adsorb hydrogen isotopes at liquid N2 temperature with priority in the order of T2, DT, D2, HT, HD and H2, we have been developing a pressure swing adsorption process system for hydrogen isotope separation. For this purpose, we carried out fundamental experiments of adsorption and desorption of a tracer D2 in bulk H2 with zeolite packedbed columns. In this paper, the results are reported that D2 is enriched in the adsorbed phase at separation factors near 2.0, flowing through zeolite 5A and 13X packed-beds at 77.4 K. These are in agreement with values predicted from the multi-component equilibrium characteristics. In the gas samples recovered by evacuating the packed-beds, however, D2 was detected at a relative concentration of 1.20 or 1.32 to that in the feed gas. This lower range results from the isotopic mass effect in kinetic process. That suggests a highly D2-enriched residual left during evacuation. This is verified with an unusually high enrichment factor of 6.68 or 9.21 for zeolite 5A or 13X measured in the residual sample desorbed from the packed-bed by heating up to room temperature.