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
October 2026
Nuclear Technology
September 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
August 2026
Latest News
LLNL, Ampera partner to develop thorium-based TRISO fuel
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has formed a strategic partnership with Ampera to develop the company’s nuclear fuel concept through a project named THUNDER, for Thorium Unimodal Droplet Ejection for Reactors.
The focus of THUNDER is fabricating TRISO made with kernels of thorium rather than the usual uranium. LLNL and Ampera will evaluate and optimize liquid metal–jetting technology to produce highly uniform, spherical kernels of thorium-232 for later processing into TRISO fuel.
Alan S. Icenhour, L. M. Toth, Huimin Luo
Nuclear Technology | Volume 147 | Number 2 | August 2004 | Pages 258-268
Technical Paper | Nuclear Plant Operations and Control | doi.org/10.13182/NT04-A3530
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Experiments have been performed in our laboratory on water sorption and radiolysis for uranium oxides. For the water sorption experiments, uranium oxide samples were prepared and exposed to known levels of humidity to establish the water uptake rate. Subsequently, the amount of water removed was studied by heating samples in an oven at fixed temperatures and by differential thermal analysis/thermogravimetric analysis. It was demonstrated that heating at 650°C adequately removes all moisture from the samples. Uranium-238 oxides were irradiated in a 60Co source and in the high-gamma-radiation fields provided by spent nuclear fuel elements of the High Flux Isotope Reactor. For hydrated samples of UO3, the primary gas produced was H2; however, the maximum pressure increase reached a steady-state value of ~500 torr (10 psi). This H2 production appears to be a function of the dose and the amount of water present. Oxygen in the hydrated UO3 sample atmosphere was typically depleted, and no significant pressure rise was observed. Heat treatment of the UO3xH2O at 650°C results in conversion to U3O8 and eliminates the H2 production. For all of the U3O8 samples loaded in air and irradiated with gamma radiation, a pressure decrease was seen and little, if any, H2 was produced - even for samples with up to 9 wt% moisture content. Hence, these results demonstrated that the efforts to remove trace moisture from U3O8 are not necessary to avoid pressurization of stored uranium oxides caused by gamma-induced radiolysis. In fact, this system can tolerate several percent of sorbed moisture.