Explanipedia

Plutonium signatures in refractory fallout support a Chernobyl nuclear jet hypothesis Open

Malcolm J. Joyce, Colin Boxall, Marcus Christl, Kirk T. Semple, Phillip E. Warwick , et al. · 2025

Measurements of refractory and volatile components in soils from Northern England confirm 244 Pu/ 239 Pu consistent with the global average but refractory 240 Pu/ 239 Pu significantly higher but consistent with Chernobyl fallout, i.e., 0.3…

Towards an understanding of the behaviour of ruthenium during vitrification of highly active waste: A study of the volatilisation of RuO2 Open

Bibi Shehrbano, Colin Boxall, Joshua Turner, Richard J. Wilbraham · 2025

Recycling nuclear fuel to recover materials such as uranium and plutonium involves high temperature processes to treat the resulting highly active (HA) waste. This waste contains ruthenium, an important fission product due to its tendency …

Development of a homogenous disposal MOX powder for plutonium immobilisation Open

J. Rolfe, Colin Boxall, Richard J. Wilbraham, D.T. Goddard, Hayley Green · 2025

Disposal MOX (dMOX), a sintered mixed U, Pu, oxide containing a neutron poison, such as Gd, is currently under consideration for immobilisation of the UK’s civil plutonium inventory. Prior to deployment, it is important to understand how m…

Hyperspectral imaging suggests potential for rapid quantification of fission products in spent nuclear fuel Open

R. David Dunphy, A. Parker, Manuel Bandala, Stuart Bennet, Colin Boxall , et al. · 2025

An analysis of sintered uranium dioxide has been conducted using a hyperspectral camera sensitive to short-wave infrared wavelengths in the range 949–2472 nm. Three groups of sintered UO 2 nuclear fuel pellets were prepared and analysed, w…

Simulation of uranium mononitride spent fuel: A thermodynamic approach Open

C. Degueldre, D.T. Goddard, G. Berhane, Allan Simpson, Colin Boxall · 2024

Uranium mononitride (UN) is a potential versatile fuel for use in both thermal and fast spectrum reactors. Knowledge of the thermodynamic properties of actinides and fission products in spent UN fuel is required to understand their propert…

A review of the reprocessability of uranium nitride based fuels Open

Suzanne Jones, Colin Boxall, Chris Maher, Robin J. Taylor · 2023

This article presents a review of the behaviour of uranium nitride (UN) fuels during thermal reactor fuel-based reprocessing. UN is one of the leading candidate materials for use in Advanced Technology Fuels (ATFs) due to it having several…

The rapid photochemical reduction of U(VI) at high uranium concentrations relevant to spent nuclear fuel recycle processes Open

Michael A. Bromley, Colin Boxall, Robin J. Taylor, Mark J. Sarsfield · 2023

An Advanced PUREX process for the recycling of spent nuclear fuel is currently under active development in the UK. Its key aims are to avoid pure separated plutonium at all stages of the process to enhance the level of proliferation resist…

AGR fuel corrosion: SIMFUEL-based method development in preparation for electrochemical studies of real spent AGR nuclear fuel electrode Open

Yifeng Huang, Colin Boxall, David Hambley, Richard J. Wilbraham · 2022

Electrochemical corrosion of lower-activity spent fuel simulants, SIMFUELs, has been investigated in support of on-going analogous studies of a real AGR spent nuclear fuel electrode. Two electrode coupling methods have been investigated, t…

Simulated advanced gas-cooled reactor spent nuclear fuels: Determination of the O/U ratio - an XRD, XPS and Raman study Open

Richard J. Wilbraham, Elizabeth A. Howett, Colin Boxall, David Hambley, Jessica K. Higgins · 2022

This paper reports a detailed chemical and materials characterization study of novel Simulated Spent Nuclear Fuels (SIMFuel) which replicate the chemical and microstructural state of Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) discharged from a UK Advanced G…

Towards the decontamination of plutonium contaminated bricks:Creation of a cerium-based simulant contamination system Open

J. W. Kennedy, Colin Boxall, Anthony Banford, Rick Demmer, A. Parker · 2019

There is a need for the decontamination of a number of plutonium-contaminated bricks encountered in a legacy BUTEX reprocessing plant on Sellafield site in the UK. Documentary review has indicated that the source of the contamination was a…

Neptunium(<span>iv</span>)-hydroxamate complexes: their speciation, and kinetics and mechanism of hydrolysis Open

Scott Edwards, Fabrice Andrieux, Colin Boxall, Mark J. Sarsfield, Robin J. Taylor , et al. · 2018

First time determination of rate parameters for hydrolysis of mono- and bis-acetohydroxamatoneptunium(iv) complexes under conditions relevant to nuclear reprocessing.

Direct mass analysis of water absorption onto thoria thin films Open

Dominic M. Laventine, Colin Boxall, Robin M. Orr, Robin J. Taylor · 2018

Plutonium oxide (PuO 2 ) is one of the most highly radioactive products of the nuclear fuel cycle and its storage poses particular challenges due to the high temperatures produced by its decay and the production of gases from, inter alia, …

Raman studies of advanced gas-cooled reactor simulated spent nuclear fuels Open

Richard J. Wilbraham, Nadya Rauff-Nisthar, Colin Boxall, Elizabeth A. Howett, David Hambley , et al. · 2018

Analysis of advanced gas-cooled reactor (AGR) simulated used nuclear fuels (SIMFuels) has been carried out using micro-Raman spectroscopy in order to understand the effect lanthanide species (e.g.Nd, Y, Ce), representative of fission produ…

A study of cerium extraction kinetics by TODGA in acidified and non-acidified organic solvent phases in the context of fission product management Open

Michael A. Bromley, Colin Boxall · 2018

In the context of management of the waste streams arising from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, studies have been conducted into the solvent extraction kinetics of lanthanide fission products by the oxygen-donor ligand N,N,N',N'-tet…

Nitrous acid-driven reduction of vanadium as a neptunium analogue Open

Michael A. Chimes, Colin Boxall, Scott Edwards, Mark J. Sarsfield, Robin J. Taylor , et al. · 2018

Neptunium has been previously shown to present challenges within a used nuclear fuel reprocessing scheme due to its tendency to exist in the (IV), (V), and (VI) oxidation states simultaneously.In order to control this neptunium speciation,…

The behavior of advanced gas reactor simulated spent nuclear fuels in wet interim storage conditions Open

Elizabeth A. Howett, Colin Boxall, Richard J. Wilbraham, David Hambley · 2018

The safe interim storage of spent nuclear fuel is important to prevent the degradation of the containers and fuel rods -both fuel pellets and cladding -thus avoiding the release of radiation and allowing the fuel to be safely handled on tr…

The DISTINCTIVE University Consortium: Structural Integrity Open

Rebecca J. Lunn, Andrea Hamilton, Matteo Pedrotti, Pieter Bots, Christopher Wong , et al. · 2018

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) sponsored DISTINCTIVE consortium (Decommissioning, Immobilisation and Storage Solutions for Nuclear Waste Inventories) is developing technologies for civil infrastructure repai…

The DISTINCTIVE University Consortium: An Overview Open

M Fairweather, L Tovey, Colin Boxall, J Hriljac, Nigel Hyatt , et al. · 2018

The DISTINCTIVE University Consortium: Transforming High Activity Materials Research in the UK Open

Nigel Hyatt, S Thornber, Nikolas Kaltsoyannis, S Sutherland-Harper, S Pimblott , et al. · 2018

Photocatalytically driven dissolution of macroscopic nickel surfaces Open

Richard J. Wilbraham, Colin Boxall, Robin J. Taylor · 2017

Photocatalytically generated H2O2-driven nickel dissolution has been studied as a novel, secondary waste minimal decontamination process for nuclear process steels. Nickel corrosion experiments in dilute H2SO4 show that at deliberately add…

Remediation of 137Cs contaminated concrete using electrokinetic phenomena and ionic salt washes in nuclear energy contexts Open

A. Parker, Malcolm J. Joyce, Colin Boxall · 2017

Simulation of Neptunium Extraction in an Advanced PUREX Process—Model Improvement Open

Hongyan Chen, Robin J. Taylor, Megan Jobson, David Woodhead, Colin Boxall , et al. · 2017

Routing neptunium to a single product in spent nuclear fuel reprocessing is a significant challenge. In this work, we have further improved the simulation of neptunium extraction in an advanced PUREX flowsheet by applying a revised model o…

Collaborative Research Programme in Decommissioning, Immobilisation and Storage Solutions for Nuclear Waste Inventories (DISTINCTIVE) Open

M Fairweather, Biggs, A.G. Ward, Colin Boxall, Ndm Evans , et al. · 2016

Corrosion of AGR Fuel Pin Steel Under Conditions Relevant to Permanent Disposal Open

Christopher Anwyl, Colin Boxall, Richard J. Wilbraham, David Hambley, Cristiano Padovani · 2016

Fuel pins from the UK's Advanced Gas-cooled Reactors (AGR) consist of ceramic UO2 fuel encased in a 20/25/Nb stainless steel cladding. Spent AGR fuel is currently reprocessed, but the option of direct disposal of spent fuel in a sealed, un…

The effect of acetohydroxamic acid on stainless steel corrosion in nitric acid Open

Richard J. Wilbraham, Colin Boxall · 2015

A study of cerium extraction by TBP and TODGA using a rotating diffusion cell Open

Michael A. Bromley, Colin Boxall · 2015

For the study of the coupled interfacial-mass transfer kinetics of, inter alia, TBP, TODGA, CyMe 4 -BTBP and CyMe 4 -BTPhen based solvent extraction processes, a new rotating diffusion cell (RDC) apparatus has been established at Lancaster…

The effect of SO<sub>3</sub>-Ph-BTBP on stainless steel corrosion in nitric acid Open

Richard J. Wilbraham, Colin Boxall · 2015

SO 3 -Ph-BTBP is a hydrophilic tetra-N-dentate ligand proposed for An(III)/Ln(III) separation by solvent extraction, and a candidate for use in future advanced reprocessing schemes such as GANEX and SANEX. We present the first study of the…

Radiometric detection of non-radioactive caesium flux using displaced naturally abundant potassium Open

A. Parker, Malcolm J. Joyce, Colin Boxall · 2015

Surface and interfacial interactions of multilayer graphitic structures with local environment Open

Riccardo Mazzocco, Benjamin J. Robinson, Caroline Rabot, Alexandru Delamoreanu, A. Zenasni , et al. · 2015

In order to exploit the potential of graphene in next-generation devices, such as supercapacitors, rechargeable batteries, displays and ultrathin sensors, it is crucial to understand the solvent interactions with the graphene surface and i…

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