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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.
D. Ene, J.-C. David, D. Doré, B. Rapp, D. Ridikas
Nuclear Technology | Volume 168 | Number 2 | November 2009 | Pages 513-518
Shielding | Special Issue on the 11th International Conference on Radiation Shielding and the 15th Topical Meeting of the Radiation Protection and Shielding Division (Part 2) / Accelerators | doi.org/10.13182/NT09-A9235
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The purpose of this safety study, carried out within the EURISOL Design Study, was to characterize the radiation environment and design the appropriate shielding of the new-generation radioactive ion beam postaccelerator. Both variants of linac layouts - without stripper (L#1) and with stripper (L#2) - were analyzed using the 132Sn25+ radioactive beam of unprecedented intensity, namely, up to [approximately]1013 particles/s, as reference for simulations. In this work two scenarios were analyzed: (a) an accidental full beam loss during 1 s every day and (b) continuous beam loss of 10-4 m-1 , representing normal operation conditions. Representative loss positions along the accelerator at variable energies of 21, 45.5, 76, 115, and 150 MeVu-1 were investigated. The lost ions were assumed to strike a stopping copper target. Dedicated simulations were performed by means of the PHITS code. The induced radioactivity in the accelerator components, concrete walls, and air inside the tunnel were estimated using the DCHAIN-SP-2001 code based on an external neutron source and spallation products derived from PHITS. Ambient dose equivalent rates due to the residual radiation were calculated with the MCNPX code using photon sources resulting from DCHAIN. The effect of implanted radioactive ions at low energies in the accelerator structure was also assessed.