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Westinghouse, Nordion, and PSEG team up to produce Co‑60 in the United States
This past January, Westinghouse Electric Company, Nordion, and PSEG Nuclear formalized agreements to implement newly developed cobalt-60 production technology at Units 1 and 2 of PSEG’s Salem nuclear power plant in New Jersey, with the Co-60 to be supplied to Nordion. Through an ongoing joint initiative, the companies aim to harness U.S. pressurized water reactors to produce a key medical isotope and build the first commercial-scale Co-60 production platform in the United States.
Jin Beak Park, Yong Soo Hwang, Chul Hyung Kang
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 142 | Number 2 | October 2002 | Pages 165-176
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE02-A2297
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Matrix diffusion into a rock matrix has been regarded to retard radionuclide migration in a fracture. Recent field findings on a fractured system indicate that only a small portion of the rock in a fractured porous medium contributes to holding a radionuclide by matrix diffusion. To understand this effect, radionuclide migration in a fracture and diffusion from a finite rock matrix to a fracture are discussed with limited matrix diffusion under solubility-limited boundary conditions of a target radionuclide for the band-type release. Numerical inversion of the Laplace transform method is applied to estimate concentrations in a fracture and a finite rock matrix and fluxes at the fracture surface. Matrix diffusion into a finite rock matrix shows enhanced radionuclide migration and a higher concentration profile in a fracture. Diffusive flux from a finite rock matrix into a fracture after the end of leaching time shows higher peak values than flux from an infinite rock matrix because of (a) higher saturation of a radionuclide in a finite rock matrix and (b) increase of a radionuclide concentration in a fracture. Therefore, it is more realistic and conservative to apply the finite matrix diffusion for the overall assessment in a potential repository embedded in a fractured porous medium.