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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.
Firooz Rufeh, Donald R. Olander and Thomas H. Pigford
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 23 | Number 4 | December 1965 | Pages 335-338
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE65-A21069
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A high-pressure furnace that operates up to 2000°C in the pressure range of 100 atm to 10−5 torr was designed and constructed to saturate UO2 powder of 4-µm average particle size with 4He. The powder was then dissolved in a fused salt in an induction chamber. The released 4He was mixed with a known quantity of 3He, and the mixture was analyzed with a mass spectrometer to determine the 4He: 3He ratio, hence the original mass of 4He in the sample. The solubility of He in UO2 at 1200 and 1300°C was found to be 6.71 × 10−4 and 3.23 × 10−4 cm3 (STP)/(g atm), respectively. It was also found that the He-UO2 system obeys Henry's law. From a plot of He concentration as a function of time, the diffusion coefficient at 1200 °C was estimated to be 1.5 × 10−13 cm2/sec.