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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. E. Burns, W. W. Schulz, L. A. Bray
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 17 | Number 4 | December 1963 | Pages 566-575
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE63-A18449
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Some solvent extraction flowsheet development studies performed recently at Hanford Laboratories in support of the Hanford radioactive waste management and neptunium recovery programs are summarized. Flowsheet for the removal of cesium from Purex current waste and stored waste supernatant liquid are discussed. Dipicrylamine-nitrobenzene is used to extract cesium; dilute nitric acid is used to strip cesium from the organic. A one-cycle flowsheet for the removal of strontium and rare earth elements from Purex process waste and separation of these into a strontium and a rare earth fraction is discussed. Extraction of the desired elements from a citrate complexed feed is by di(2-ethylhexyl) phosphoric acid-tributylphosphate-Soltrol solvent. Strontium is removed from the organic by dilute nitric acid in the second column. Rare earths are stripped from the organic by more concentrated nitric acid in a third column. Procedures for recovery of neptunium and plutonium from Purex process acidic waste are described. The solvent is di(2-ethylhexyl phosphoric) acid-Soltrol; Pu(IV) and Np(IV) are extracted from acid solution at such high distribution ratios that adequate recovery is attained in a single batch contact. Studies leading to the flowsheets as well as results of tests of the flowsheets with simulated and actual plant solutions are discussed.