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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.
Yukio Sakamoto, Hideo Hirayama, Osamu Sato, Akinao Shimizu
Nuclear Technology | Volume 168 | Number 3 | December 2009 | Pages 585-590
Nuclear Data | Special Issue on the 11th International Conference on Radiation Shielding and the 15th Topical Meeting of the Radiation Protection and Shielding Division (PART 3) / Radiation Protection | doi.org/10.13182/NT09-A9273
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Bremsstrahlung radiation (hereinafter referred to as bremsstrahlung) production data are needed in the calculation of buildup factors, including the contribution of secondary photons by the photon transport codes, which do not handle electron transport. The emission of bremsstrahlung is treated as exactly as possible by the introduction of EGS4 results. The bremsstrahlung production data by pair-created electrons per pair creation reaction and Compton scattered electrons per Compton scattering are evaluated for 26 elements from hydrogen to uranium and four compounds and mixtures of water, concrete, air, and lead glass. The error estimation of bremsstrahlung contribution to buildup factors by the invariant embedding (IE) method coupled with these bremsstrahlung data is coincident with fully transported results by the EGS4 code within [approximately]5%. By the introduction of bremsstrahlung production data into IE methods, we can calculate buildup factors included by the contribution of those with good accuracy up to deep penetration. By the interpolation and mixture of bremsstrahlung production data for each element, we can evaluate the data of the element or mixture whose data are not evaluated by the EGS4 code.