Unattended Environmental Sampling and Laser-based Enrichment Assay for Detection of Undeclared HEU Production in Enrichment Plants
Nuclear power is enjoying rapid growth as government energy policies and public demand shift toward carbon neutral energy production. Accompanying the growth in nuclear power is the requirement for increased nuclear fuel production, including a significant expansion in uranium enrichment capacity. Essential to the success of the nuclear energy renaissance is the development and implementation of sustainable, proliferation-resistant nuclear power generation. Unauthorized production of highly enriched uranium (HEU) remains the primary proliferation concern for modern gaseous centrifuge enrichment plants (GCEPs). While to date there has been no indication of declared, safeguarded GCEPs producing HEU, the massive separative work unit (SWU) processing power of modern GCEPs presents a significant latent risk of nuclear breakout and suggests the need for more timely detection of potential facility misuse. The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is developing an unattended safeguards instrument, combining continuous aerosol particulate collection with uranium isotope assay, to provide timely HEU detection within a GCEP. This approach is based on laser vaporization of aerosol particulates, followed by laser spectroscopy to characterize the uranium enrichment level. We demonstrate enrichment assay, with relative isotope abundance uncertainty <5%, on individual micron-sized particles that are trace components within a mixture ‘background’ particles
- Research Organization:
- Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-76RL01830
- OSTI ID:
- 1006301
- Report Number(s):
- PNNL-SA-72107; TRN: US1101222
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Proceedings of the Pacific Northwest International Conference on Global Nuclear Security - The Decade Ahead, April 11-16, 2010, Portland, OR.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
ABUNDANCE
AEROSOLS
CARBON
CENTRIFUGE ENRICHMENT PLANTS
DETECTION
HIGHLY ENRICHED URANIUM
IMPLEMENTATION
ISOTOPE SEPARATION
LASER SPECTROSCOPY
LASERS
MIXTURES
NUCLEAR ENERGY
NUCLEAR FUELS
NUCLEAR POWER
PARTICULATES
PROLIFERATION
SAFEGUARDS
SAMPLING
URANIUM ISOTOPES
Laser ablation