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.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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
Jul 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
September 2025
Nuclear Technology
August 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Deep Space: The new frontier of radiation controls
In commercial nuclear power, there has always been a deliberate tension between the regulator and the utility owner. The regulator fundamentally exists to protect the worker, and the utility, to make a profit. It is a win-win balance.
From the U.S. nuclear industry has emerged a brilliantly successful occupational nuclear safety record—largely the result of an ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) process that has driven exposure rates down to what only a decade ago would have been considered unthinkable. In the U.S. nuclear industry, the system has accomplished an excellent, nearly seamless process that succeeds to the benefit of both employee and utility owner.
Wallace Davis, Jr.
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 61 | Number 1 | September 1976 | Pages 11-20
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE76-A28456
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Different decontamination factors for 129I and 131I are frequently invoked in environmental impact reports concerned with nuclear fuel recycle. Selected differences, or ratios, have not been justified on the basis of mathematical models or experimental data. This report presents a description of the origins of these differences in terms of isotopic exchange and material balance equations for the short- and long-lived (or stable) isotopes. The ratios of decontamination factors can be calculated when there is complete attainment of isotopic exchange between gas- or liquid-phase iodine and iodine sorbed by a solid or liquid. If there is no exchange, decontamination factors are isotope independent unless material recycle occurs within the system. Between these extremes, there can be decontamination factors whose explanation requires experimental determination of the extent of exchange. The model applies to other radioactive isotopes of iodine as well as to other elements with short- and long-lived (or stable) isotopes.
