Nuclear Power at the Imperial College, London: Prof. J. M. Kay

The Keeping the Nuclear Option Open (KNOO) research consortium is a four-year research council funded initiative addressing the challenges related to increasing the safety, reliability and sustainability of nuclear power in the UK. Through collaboration between key industrial and governmental stakeholders, and with international partners, KNOO was established to maintain and develop skills relevant to nuclear power generation. Funded by a research grant of £6.1M from the “Towards a Sustainable Energy Economy Programme” of the UK Research Councils, it represents the single largest university-based nuclear research programme in the UK for more than 30 years. The programme is led by Imperial College London, in collaboration with the universities of Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds, Bristol, Cardiff and the Open University. These universities are working with the UK nuclear industry, who contributed a further £0.4M in funding. The industry/government stakeholders include AWE, British Energy, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Environment Agency, the Health and Safety Executive, Doosan Babcock, the Ministry of Defence, Nirex, AMEC NNC, Rolls-Royce PLC and the UK Atomic Energy Authority. Work Package 3 of this consortium, led by the University of Leeds, concerns “An Integrated Approach to Waste Immobilisation and Management”, and involves Imperial College London, and the Universities of Manchester and Sheffield. The aims of this work package are: to study the re-mobilisation, transport, solid-liquid separation and immobilisation of particulate wastes; to develop predictive models for particle behaviour based on atomic scale, thermodynamic and process scale simulations; to develop a fundamental understanding of selective adsorption of nuclides onto filter systems and their immobilisation; and to consider mechanisms of nuclide leaving and transport. The paper describes highlights from this work in the key areas of multi-scale modeling (using atomic scale, thermodynamic and process scale models), the engineering properties of waste (linking microscopic and macroscopic behaviour, and transport and rheology), and waste reactivity (considering waste hosts and wasteforms, generation IV wastes, and waste interactions).

Download Full-text

A novel sampling system for radiocarbon measurements of atmospheric methane

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-15015 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Giulia Zazzeri ◽

Xiaomei Xu ◽

Heather Graven

Keyword(s):

Molecular Sieves ◽

Nuclear Power ◽

Power Plants ◽

Methane Emissions ◽

Measurement Precision ◽

Imperial College ◽

Atmospheric Methane ◽

Sampling System ◽

Mass Spectrometry Facility ◽

Better Than

Radiocarbon in atmospheric methane (&#916;14CH4) is a powerful tracer of fossil methane emissions and can be used to attribute methane emissions to fossil or biogenic sources. However, few &#916;14CH4 measurements are reported since 20001,2, due to challenges in sampling enough carbon for 14C measurements and in assessing the influence of 14C emissions from nuclear power plants on the 14C observations.At Imperial College London we addressed the sampling limitation by developing a unique sampling system that separates carbon at the point of sampling and uses small traps of molecular sieves. Collection of a sample is made by three main steps: 1) removal of CO2 and CO from air, 2) combustion of CH4 into CO2 and 3) adsorption of the combustion-derived CO2 onto the molecular sieve trap. 14C analysis of our samples was carried out at the accelerator mass spectrometry facility at UCI. This novel system has been used for collection of samples in central London and has been made portable for collection of samples in different settings.&#160;Here we describe the system and report the evaluation of the measurement uncertainty and the processing blank. We achieved a measurement precision of 6 &#8240;, which is similar to or better than the reported precision of the most recent observations1,3.1 Townsend&#8208;Small et al JGR 117(D7) 20122 Sparrow et al Sci. Adv 4(1) 20183 Espic et al Radiocarbon 61( 5) 2019

Download Full-text

Grant, Prof. Peter John, (2 July 1926–13 July 1999), Professor of Nuclear Power, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, 1966–91, then Emeritus; Deputy Vice-Chancellor, University of London, 1990–92

10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.u178773 ◽

2007 ◽

Keyword(s):

Nuclear Power ◽

Imperial College ◽

Science Technology ◽

Vice Chancellor

Download Full-text

Nuclear Power at the Imperial College

Nature ◽

10.1038/179455a0 ◽

1957 ◽

Vol 179 (4557) ◽

pp. 455-455

Keyword(s):

Nuclear Power ◽

Imperial College

Download Full-text

Interfaces for the 21st Century. Edited by M. K. SMITH, M. J. MIKSIS, G. B. MCFADDEN, G. P. NEITZEL D. R. CANRIGHT. Imperial College Press, 2002. 317 pp. ISBN 1-86094-319-5. 42.

Journal of Fluid Mechanics ◽

10.1017/s0022112002243700 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 477 ◽

pp. 410-411

Keyword(s):

21St Century ◽

Imperial College

Download Full-text

The Effects of Ion Implantation on the Surface Features of Inconel 600

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100118333 ◽

1985 ◽

Vol 43 ◽

pp. 288-289

Author(s):

John D. Rubio

Keyword(s):

Grain Boundary ◽

Ion Implantation ◽

Nuclear Power ◽

Power Plants ◽

Surface Region ◽

Selective Dissolution ◽

Boundary Region ◽

Near Surface ◽

Inconel 600 ◽

Steam Generator Tubing

The degradation of steam generator tubing at nuclear power plants has become an important problem for the electric utilities generating nuclear power. The material used for the tubing, Inconel 600, has been found to be succeptible to intergranular attack (IGA). IGA is the selective dissolution of material along its grain boundaries. The author believes that the sensitivity of Inconel 600 to IGA can be minimized by homogenizing the near-surface region using ion implantation. The collisions between the implanted ions and the atoms in the grain boundary region would displace the atoms and thus effectively smear the grain boundary.To determine the validity of this hypothesis, an Inconel 600 sample was implanted with 100kV N2+ ions to a dose of 1x1016 ions/cm2 and electrolytically etched in a 5% Nital solution at 5V for 20 seconds. The etched sample was then examined using a JEOL JSM25S scanning electron microscope.

Download Full-text