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
2026 Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
Latest Magazine Issues
Aug 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
September 2026
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
August 2026
Latest News
Undeclared uranium hitches a ride on cobalt exports from Congo, study says
Philippe (left) and Manzuk quantified the amount of uranium that has been exported from the DRC in cobalt shipments or left behind in the environment. (Photo: Joel Hallberg/UW–Madison)
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Princeton University have published a study in Nature Communications that calls attention to a blind spot in nuclear nonproliferation: The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has exported thousands of metric tons of uranium, and there is no accounting for where it has gone.
In partnership with Lighthouse Reports and the Financial Times, UW–Madison nuclear engineering professor and nuclear security expert Sébastien Philippe and Ryan Manzuk, a geologist and research fellow in Philippe’s group and at Princeton, conducted the study using countrywide mineralization and geochemical data.
Byung-Ho Lee, Yang-Hyun Koo, Han-Soo Kim, Jae-Yong Oh, Young-Woo Lee, Dong-Seong Sohn, Wolfgang Wiesenack
Nuclear Technology | Volume 172 | Number 3 | December 2010 | Pages 246-254
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT10-A10933
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Attrition-milling technology for fabricating mixed oxide (MOX) fuel was developed to mix the plutonium in UO2 fuels as homogeneously as possible. The fabricated MOX fuels were instrumented with temperature and pressure gauges that enabled one to measure the fuel temperature and rod internal pressure online. An irradiation test in the Halden reactor was performed to investigate the in-pile behavior of the fabricated MOX fuel. The irradiation of 1020 effective full-power days was successfully accomplished with good integrity of the test fuel rods. The rod average burnup reached [approximately]50 MWd/kg HM, and the measured fuel centerline temperature was [approximately]1000°C for the MOX fuels. A significant fission gas release was observed due to the high power level. The online measured in-pile performance data of the two attrition-milled MOX fuel rods were analyzed and compared with the fuel performance code COSMOS. COSMOS simulated the fuel centerline temperature and rod internal pressure for both MOX fuel rods. The analysis by COSMOS showed good agreement with the online measured in-pile behavior of MOX fuel.
