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.
Edward J. Waller, Jason T. Brown
Nuclear Technology | Volume 175 | Number 1 | July 2011 | Pages 93-104
Technical Paper | Special Issue on the 16th Biennial Topical Meeting of the Radiation Protection and Shielding Division / Radiation Transport and Protection | doi.org/10.13182/NT11-A12276
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Handling radioisotope neutron sources may involve exposure to both neutron and gamma fields. Although the field of gamma dosimetry is well developed and reliable, challenges exist with personal neutron dosimetry. A number of gamma and neutron dosimeters were evaluated for their efficacy in providing personal dosimetry for radioisotope source manipulations. A commercial off-the-shelf electronic neutron dosimeter was observed to underestimate total operator dose when manipulating a 252Cf source. In this work, scaling factors were evaluated using both experimental results and Monte Carlo simulations to allow a measured electronic personal gamma dosimeter (EPGD) dose to be used to estimate the total neutron + gamma dose. The recommended scaling factor using an MGP SOR/R EPGD for free-field 252Cf is 18, and for shielded 252Cf the recommended scaling factor is 6. A conservative single scaling factor of 18 is appropriate for personal dosimetry estimates.