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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.
E. Kozlova, I. Strasik, A. Fertman, E. Mustafin, T. Radon, R. Hinca, M. Pavlovic, G. Fehrenbacher, H. Geissel, A. Golubev, H. Iwase, D. Schardt
Nuclear Technology | Volume 168 | Number 3 | December 2009 | Pages 747-751
Heavy Ion Transport | 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-A9300
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The activation of structures and surroundings of new high-intensity heavy-ion accelerators like the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) is an important issue. Monte Carlo codes such as FLUKA allow the prediction of the production of individual radioactive isotopes and the induced radioactivity that causes the main contribution to the radiation exposure of personnel. The work is a benchmark study of activation predictions for uranium beams with 500 and 950 MeV/u deposited in copper and stainless steel targets. Precise gamma spectrometry measurements for isotope identification have been carried out with a HPGe detector. All gamma-emitting radionuclides with half-lives of more than 2 days that contribute significantly to the residual dose rates have been studied. The benchmark study shows that FLUKA is a suitable code for the prediction of induced radioactivity at medium-energy heavy-ion accelerators.