NEI Nuclear Notes

The following is a guest post from Matt Wald, senior communications advisor at NEI. Follow Matt on Twitter at @MattLWald . From the batteries in our cell phones to the clothes on our backs, "nanomaterials" that are designed molecule by molecule are working their way into our economy and our lives. Now there’s some promising work on new materials for nuclear reactors. Reactors are a tough environment. The sub atomic particles that sustain the chain reaction, neutrons, are great for splitting additional uranium atoms, but not all of them hit a uranium atom; some of them end up in various metal components of the reactor. The metal is usually a crystalline structure, meaning it is as orderly as a ladder or a sheet of graph paper, but the neutrons rearrange the atoms, leaving some infinitesimal voids in the structure and some areas of extra density. The components literally grow, getting longer and thicker. The phenomenon is well understood and designers compensate for it wi...

The Department of Energy is funding the University of Idaho with $732K to prove the feasibility of using highly magnetic nanoparticles to reprocess used nuclear fuel . If successful, scientists at the University of Idaho will kill three birds with one nanoparticle by recovering usable nuclear fuel, making nuclear waste easier and safer to dispose of, and accomplishing the task in an environmentally friendly way. Here's some heavy science for you: The fundamental technology that makes the process possible is the ability to make the MNPs. These are tiny pieces of pure iron nanoparticles coated with a layer of iron oxides, commonly known as rust, just two nanometers thick. Because of their iron core, the MNPs are 10 times more magnetic than commercially available nanoparticles that typically are made entirely of iron oxide. The trick to using nanoparticles made of pure iron is the thin coating of iron oxide, which prevents the core from completely oxidizing into rust. The particles c...

The Foresight Nanotech Institute is talking about it.