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Texas A&M welcomes uranium conversion research
The Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES) has signed a research agreement with Quantum Leap Energy (QLE) “to advance and de-risk the commercial production of high-purity uranium hexafluoride (UF6).”
QLE is an Austin, Texas–based subsidiary of ASP Isotopes (ASPI), which is developing an isotope enrichment platform for applications in nuclear energy, nuclear medicine, and semiconductors. QLE specializes in the uranium conversion step of the nuclear fuel cycle—the conversion of yellowcake uranium concentrate (U3O8) into UF6 prior to enrichment.
Mahsa Farasat, Federico Zagni, Lorenzo Pompignoli, G. A. Pablo Cirrone, Ulrich W. Scherer, Lidia Strigari, Domiziano Mostacci
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 197 | Number 9 | September 2023 | Pages 2317-2326
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2022.2164148
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Argon-41 is an essential gaseous radionuclide that must be monitored in gaseous effluents from nuclear facilities. Therefore, a precise evaluation of 41Ar activity is highly desired. Gamma spectroscopy with a NaI(Tl) scintillation detector coupled with a multichannel analyzer (MCA) is one of the widely used techniques for the identification and activity measurements of radioisotopes. However, the efficiency calibration of these kinds of monitoring systems highly depends on the source-detector geometry, and a large amount of uncertainty may complicate the calibration. This paper presents the evaluation of the full peak efficiency of a 2 × 2-in. NaI(Tl) scintillation detector coupled with a stable MCA for a 41Ar source with 1293.5 keV energy in two different source-detector geometries, duct and Marinelli beaker, using the FLUKA code. A new experimental technique is considered to produce 41Ar in a controlled geometry, like a Marinelli beaker, through neutron irradiation of natural argon inside a cyclotron bunker. The simulation data were compared with the experimental results for Marinelli beaker geometry, and the ratio was evaluated as 0.99 ± 0.07. The ratio was considered a scaling factor for the final efficiency calibration of duct geometry.