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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.
Ethan S. Chaleff, Thomas Blue, Piyush Sabharwall
Nuclear Technology | Volume 196 | Number 1 | October 2016 | Pages 53-60
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NT16-52
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The molten fluoride salt eutectic LiF-NaF-KF (FLiNaK) has been proposed as a coolant for use in Generation IV reactors designed to operate at temperatures at which radiation heat transfer (RHT) may be significant. Little research has been performed into the absorption coefficient of FLiNaK as it pertains to thermal RHT. An estimate of the spectral absorption coefficient for FLiNaK has been generated using informed assumptions and existing data for the constituent salts. The effect of heat transfer, as it pertains to flowing salt in circular cross-section pipes with heated walls, has been investigated for laminar flow using a mathematical model. The combined energy equation, in various geometries, was solved for laminar flow, with the radiative heat flux calculated using the differential approximation. The percentage of energy transferred by radiation to the salt was found to be primarily a function of pipe diameter, wall temperature, and the salt absorption coefficient. A map of temperatures and pipe diameters has been generated, which indicates where RHT is significant. A correlation has been proposed, based on the mathematical model, to account for increase in Nusselt number due to radiation. Additional discussion is included on the effects of wall emissivity and high Reynolds flows.