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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.
A. Jankowiak, F. Jorion, C. Maillard, L. Donnet
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 160 | Number 3 | November 2008 | Pages 378-384
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE160-378
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This study describes the preparation and characterization of Pu0.5Am0.5O2-x-MgO ceramic/ceramic (cercer) composites with 20 and 30 vol% of Pu0.5Am0.5O2-x. The sintered materials demonstrated very different reduction behavior when exposed to a reducing sintering cycle. The composites were studied by combined X-ray diffraction (XRD) and oxygen-to-metal ratio measurements and exhibited various amounts of body-centered-cubic (bcc) and face-centered-cubic (fcc) phases corresponding to different reduction states of the mixed actinide oxide. The fcc phases correspond to a near stoichiometry phase while the bcc phases are attributed to most reduced phases, which demonstrate a greater similarity with the Am2O3 bcc phase. The XRD results suggest a reduction of Am prior to Pu, which explains this greater similarity. In addition, the 30 vol% composite contains 65 wt% of the bcc phase while the 20 vol% composite exhibits only 29 wt%. This result can be explained by the percolation theory when applied to the oxygen diffusivity and indicates that a threshold value for Pu0.5Am0.5O2-x content in the cercer composite exists where the reduction of the mixed oxide significantly increases.