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
Fuel Cycle & Waste Management
Devoted to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle including waste management, worldwide. Division specific areas of interest and involvement include uranium conversion and enrichment; fuel fabrication, management (in-core and ex-core) and recycle; transportation; safeguards; high-level, low-level and mixed waste management and disposal; public policy and program management; decontamination and decommissioning environmental restoration; and excess weapons materials disposition.
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Apr 2024
Jan 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
May 2024
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Glass strategy: Hanford’s enhanced waste glass program
The mission of the Department of Energy’s Office of River Protection (ORP) is to complete the safe cleanup of waste resulting from decades of nuclear weapons development. One of the most technologically challenging responsibilities is the safe disposition of approximately 56 million gallons of radioactive waste historically stored in 177 tanks at the Hanford Site in Washington state.
ORP has a clear incentive to reduce the overall mission duration and cost. One pathway is to develop and deploy innovative technical solutions that can advance baseline flow sheets toward higher efficiency operations while reducing identified risks without compromising safety. Vitrification is the baseline process that will convert both high-level and low-level radioactive waste at Hanford into a stable glass waste form for long-term storage and disposal.
Although vitrification is a mature technology, there are key areas where technology can further reduce operational risks, advance baseline processes to maximize waste throughput, and provide the underpinning to enhance operational flexibility; all steps in reducing mission duration and cost.
Yasuhisa Oya, Misaki Sato, Kenta Yuyama, Masanori Hara, Yuji Hatano, Masao Matsuyama, Takumi Chikada
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 68 | Number 2 | September 2015 | Pages 358-361
Technical Paper | Proceedings of TOFE-2014 | doi.org/10.13182/FST14-931
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Dynamics of tritium recovery using CuO catalyst and water bubbler was studied as a function of gas flow rate and CuO temperature. The rate constant of tritiated water formation by CuO catalyst at the temperature above 500 K was determined to be k [s-1] = 5.4×105 exp (-0.65 eV / kBT). For the flow rate less than 50 sccm, it was found that the reaction rate will be controlled by the desorption rate of HTO on the surface of CuO. These results were applied for the design of tritium removal system at radiation-controlled area. It was concluded that the reactor tubing with 1.0 meter length at 600 K will be suitable to reduce the tritium concentration less than 1/1000 and the longer reactor tubing will be required if the operation temperature will be lower than 600 K.
