ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
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Division Spotlight
Accelerator Applications
The division was organized to promote the advancement of knowledge of the use of particle accelerator technologies for nuclear and other applications. It focuses on production of neutrons and other particles, utilization of these particles for scientific or industrial purposes, such as the production or destruction of radionuclides significant to energy, medicine, defense or other endeavors, as well as imaging and diagnostics.
Meeting Spotlight
International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver Downtown
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!
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Latest News
IAEA to help monitor plastic pollution in the Galapagos Islands
The International Atomic Energy Agency announced that its Nuclear Technology for Controlling Plastic Pollution (NUTEC Plastics) initiative has partnered with Ecuador’s Oceanographic Institute of the Navy (INOCAR) and Polytechnic School of the Coast (ESPOL) to build microplastic monitoring and analytical capacity to address the growing threat of marine microplastic pollution in the Galapagos Islands.
Darryl D. Siemer
Nuclear Technology | Volume 178 | Number 3 | June 2012 | Pages 341-352
Technical Note | Reprocessing | doi.org/10.13182/NT12-A13599
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An often cited weakness of the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) concept is that the chloride salt-based radioactive waste generated by its electrorefiner (ER) cannot be vitrified. Although that assertion is literally true, it is also misleading because it would be quite simple to recycle that waste's chloride and vitrify its cationic components (mostly alkali metals and fission products). Producing this alternative to Argonne National Laboratory's ceramic waste form would entail vitrification of a mixture of orthophosphoric acid, ferric oxide, and powdered ER salt with a melter able to efficiently disengage gas bubbles, e.g., a Stir Melter. The HCl evolved by this process would be absorbed by an aqueous lithium/potassium hydroxide scrub solution, which would then be dried and recycled as fresh ER electrolyte. Because radioiodide would otherwise accumulate in the ER salt, the caustic scrub solution would occasionally be contacted with cuprous or silver chloride before recycle. This scenario's primary advantages would be much lower cost and approximately fivefold greater effective waste loading. This paper describes the experimental work supporting these contentions.