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Going Nuclear: Notes from the officially unofficial book tour
I work in the analytical labs at one of Europe’s oldest and largest nuclear sites: Sellafield, in northwestern England. I spend my days at the fume hood front, pipette in one hand and radiation probe in the other (and dosimeter pinned to my chest, of course). Outside the lab, I have a second job: I moonlight as a writer and public speaker. My new popular science book—Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World—came out last summer, and it feels like my life has been running at full power ever since.
R.A. Surette, R.G.C. McElroy
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 14 | Number 2 | September 1988 | Pages 1141-1146
Tritium Safety | doi.org/10.13182/FST88-1
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This presentation describes some experiments to investigate the removal, regrowth and evolution of tritium from stainless steel planchets that had been exposed to elemental tritium. The total tritium sorbed onto and into a planchet was measured by heating the planchet and collecting the evolved tritium. The removable surface activity was determined from swipe measurements. The evolution of tritium from the planchets was determined by leaving some of the planchets exposed to air for almost one year and then measuring the tritium remaining. The swipe experiments indicate that a removal efficiency of 10% is representative but usually conservative for an undisturbed surface. In general, the fraction of activity that is removable is dependent on the surface history. If a cleaned surface is left undisturbed for a few days removable surface activity may regrow. If the surface is left undisturbed for a long period of time (months) some of the tritium in the planchet will be lost to the atmosphere.