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Division Spotlight
Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy
The mission of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy Division (NNPD) is to promote the peaceful use of nuclear technology while simultaneously preventing the diversion and misuse of nuclear material and technology through appropriate safeguards and security, and promotion of nuclear nonproliferation policies. To achieve this mission, the objectives of the NNPD are to: Promote policy that discourages the proliferation of nuclear technology and material to inappropriate entities. Provide information to ANS members, the technical community at large, opinion leaders, and decision makers to improve their understanding of nuclear nonproliferation issues. Become a recognized technical resource on nuclear nonproliferation, safeguards, and security issues. Serve as the integration and coordination body for nuclear nonproliferation activities for the ANS. Work cooperatively with other ANS divisions to achieve these objective nonproliferation policies.
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
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.
Tres Thoenen
Nuclear Technology | Volume 126 | Number 1 | April 1999 | Pages 75-87
Technical Paper | Radioactive Waste Management and Disposal | doi.org/10.13182/NT99-A2959
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Solubility limitation of radionuclides by solid phases in aqueous environments is a key factor in performance assessment of radioactive waste repositories. Although the modeling of solubility limits is a standard procedure, results are often questionable because the basic data used are either irrelevant, inaccurate, or incomplete. This is illustrated by discussing the potential solubility limitation of Ni in sulfidic groundwaters, which is of some importance to the planned low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste repository at Wellenberg, Switzerland. Calculated solubility limits for Ni may be in error if a solubility-limiting sulfide mineral is chosen that is irrelevant for the considered geochemical conditions. Solubility data need to be carefully evaluated: In the case of millerite (NiS), the most likely Ni sulfide mineral to form, widely used solubility product constants turn out to be based on crude estimates only, and accurate solubility data are missing. The formation of Ni sulfide complexes may considerably enhance the solubility of Ni. Although reliable complexation constants for Ni sulfide complexes are missing, their neglect may result in a severe underestimation of Ni solubility in sulfidic environments, by analogy with Zn sulfide complexes whose complexation constants are reliably known.