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.
Division Spotlight
Aerospace Nuclear Science & Technology
Organized to promote the advancement of knowledge in the use of nuclear science and technologies in the aerospace application. Specialized nuclear-based technologies and applications are needed to advance the state-of-the-art in aerospace design, engineering and operations to explore planetary bodies in our solar system and beyond, plus enhance the safety of air travel, especially high speed air travel. Areas of interest will include but are not limited to the creation of nuclear-based power and propulsion systems, multifunctional materials to protect humans and electronic components from atmospheric, space, and nuclear power system radiation, human factor strategies for the safety and reliable operation of nuclear power and propulsion plants by non-specialized personnel and more.
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Apr 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
May 2025
Latest News
Dragonfly, a Pu-fueled drone heading to Titan, gets key NASA approval
Curiosity landed on Mars sporting a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) in 2012, and a second NASA rover, Perseverance, landed in 2021. Both are still rolling across the red planet in the name of science. Another exploratory craft with a similar plutonium-238–fueled RTG but a very different mission—to fly between multiple test sites on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon—recently got one step closer to deployment.
On April 25, NASA and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) announced that the Dragonfly mission to Saturn’s icy moon passed its critical design review. “Passing this mission milestone means that Dragonfly’s mission design, fabrication, integration, and test plans are all approved, and the mission can now turn its attention to the construction of the spacecraft itself,” according to NASA.
Jungsook Clara Wren, Joanne M. Ball, Glenn A. Glowa
Nuclear Technology | Volume 125 | Number 3 | March 1999 | Pages 337-362
Technical Paper | Radioisotopes | doi.org/10.13182/NT99-A2952
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Organic impurities in containment water, originating from various painted structural surfaces and organic containment materials, could have a significant impact on iodine volatility following an accident. To determine the effect of these impurities on iodine volatility under accident conditions, literature, experimental, and modeling studies have been conducted on1. the radiolysis of organic compounds in the aqueous phase2. thermal and radiolytic formation and decomposition of organic iodides3. dissolution of organic solvents from various painted surfaces into the aqueous phase4. hydrolysis and aqueous-gas phase partitioning of organic iodides5. iodine deposition on painted surfaces.The experimental studies consist of intermediate-scale "integrated effects" tests in the Radioiodine Test Facility and bench-scale "separate effects" tests. Recent findings from these studies and implications of these studies on the safety analysis of an accident in a nuclear power station are discussed.The studies have shown that organic impurities will be found in containment water as a result of the dissolution of organic compounds from various surface paints. These compounds can have a significant effect on iodine volatility following an accident. The main influence of containment paints on iodine behavior will arise as a result of the aqueous-phase radiolysis of dissolved organic solvents, which are leached from the painted surface by the water. The radiolysis products will decrease the sump pH and dissolved oxygen concentration, consequently increasing the overall rate of conversion of dissolved I- to volatile I2. It appears that the rates of these processes may be controlled by the dissolution kinetics of the organic compounds from the surface coatings. Moreover, organic compounds may also react thermally and radiolytically with I2 to form organic iodides in the aqueous phase. Our studies have shown that the formation of organic iodides in the aqueous phase from soluble organic compounds such as ketones, alcohols, and phenols will have more impact on the total iodine volatility than the formation of CH3I from CH4 and I2 from either the gas or the aqueous phase.
