Release Behaviour of Sr-90 From Hydraulically Retrieved ILW Sludge

2008 ◽  
Vol 1107 ◽  
Author(s):  
J J Hastings

AbstractGlobally, the nuclear industry has a large number of legacy wastes that are stored in ponds, silos and tanks that are nearing the end of their design lifetime and hence said wastes need processing. In the UK there are significant quantities of radioactive sludge that have arisen from the corrosion of early Magnox fuel cans which have been stored underwater. As part of the present aggressive clean-up programme these materials will be retrieved, separated, processed and immobilised as dry waste forms for long-term storage. It is envisaged that hydraulic retrieval will be used for these ILW sludges resulting in some activity being released from the sludge phase to the process liquors challenging downstream ion exchange effluent treatment plants.In order to understand this challenge, experiments have been conducted on sludge in ILW storage ponds and during sludge transfer operations to study the activity released from said sludges. In particular the solubility, adsorption behaviour of Sr-90 is discussed and how this and other aspects of the sludge chemistry impact upon the ion exchange effluent treatment process. The novel methodologies employed to obtain this data is also discussed.

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (9) ◽  
pp. 4315
Author(s):  
Marta Puchta ◽  
Jolanta Groszyk ◽  
Magdalena Małecka ◽  
Marek D. Koter ◽  
Maciej Niedzielski ◽  
...  

Seed aging is a complex biological process that has been attracting scientists’ attention for many years. High-throughput small RNA sequencing was applied to examine microRNAs contribution in barley seeds senescence. Unique samples of seeds that, despite having the same genetic makeup, differed in viability after over 45 years of storage in a dry state were investigated. In total, 61 known and 81 novel miRNA were identified in dry seeds. The highest level of expression was found in four conserved miRNA families, i.e., miR159, miR156, miR166, and miR168. However, the most astonishing result was the lack of significant differences in the level of almost all miRNAs in seed samples with significantly different viability. This result reveals that miRNAs in dry seeds are extremely stable. This is also the first identified RNA fraction that is not deteriorating along with the loss of seed viability. Moreover, the novel miRNA hvu-new41, with higher expression in seeds with the lowest viability as detected by RT-qPCR, has the potential to become an indicator of the decreasing viability of seeds during storage in a dry state.


2009 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 492-498 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Joseph Pfeifer ◽  
Guenther Scheel

This report describes the features and the performance of a new and significantly improved 1536-well microplate design. The design allows for simple, automation-friendly, and cost-effective storage of compound solutions for high-throughput screening. The plate design is based on Society for Biomolecular Sciences standards for microplates and can be molded from polystyrene or cycloolefin copolymer, thus making the plate suitable for use with acoustic dispensing as well as other conventional liquid dispensing in the nanoliter range. For a 9:1 DMSO/water mix as solvent, the novel plate design has shown to perform over 4 months with only minor losses in solvent. Thus, this novel plate design creates the basis for further reductions in compound storage volumes and allows for an increase in the storage times for microliter volumes for up to a year or more. The high protection against solvent evaporation is also visible for aqueous solutions, thus allowing for reduced edge effects during screening campaigns.


2013 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 940-978 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Soltoggio ◽  
Jochen J. Steil

In the course of trial-and-error learning, the results of actions, manifested as rewards or punishments, occur often seconds after the actions that caused them. How can a reward be associated with an earlier action when the neural activity that caused that action is no longer present in the network? This problem is referred to as the distal reward problem. A recent computational study proposes a solution using modulated plasticity with spiking neurons and argues that precise firing patterns in the millisecond range are essential for such a solution. In contrast, the study reported in this letter shows that it is the rarity of correlating neural activity, and not the spike timing, that allows the network to solve the distal reward problem. In this study, rare correlations are detected in a standard rate-based computational model by means of a threshold-augmented Hebbian rule. The novel modulated plasticity rule allows a randomly connected network to learn in classical and instrumental conditioning scenarios with delayed rewards. The rarity of correlations is shown to be a pivotal factor in the learning and in handling various delays of the reward. This study additionally suggests the hypothesis that short-term synaptic plasticity may implement eligibility traces and thereby serve as a selection mechanism in promoting candidate synapses for long-term storage.


Author(s):  
Elizabeth Robertson ◽  
Stuart Galloway

The Scottish Government’s commitment for 100% of electricity consumed in Scotland to be from renewable, zero-carbon sources by 2020 continues to drive change in the energy system alongside European and UK targets. The growth of renewables in Scotland is being seen at many scales including industrial, domestic and community generation. In these latter two cases, a transition from the current ‘top down’ energy distribution system to a newer approach is emerging. The work of this paper will look at a ‘bottom up’ view that sees community led distributed energy at its centre. This paper uses the modelling tool HESA to investigate high penetrations of distributed generation in the Angus Region of Scotland. Installations of distributed generation will follow Thousand Flowers transition pathway trajectory, which sees more than 50% of electricity demand being supplied by distributed generation by 2050. From this, insights around the technological and socio-political feasibility, consequences and implications of high penetrations of distributed generation in the UK energy system are presented. Results demonstrate the influence that system change will have on regional and local emission levels under four separate scenarios. It is shown that the penetration of distributed generation requires supplementary installations of reliable and long-term storage alongside utilisation of transmission and transportation infrastructures to maximise the potential of distributed generation and maximise whole system benefits. Importantly, there must be a level of co-ordination and support to realise a shift to a highly distributed energy future to ensure there is a strong economic case with a reliable policy backing.


2009 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Spencer ◽  
John Sheridan ◽  
David Thomas ◽  
David Pullinger

Government's use of the Web in the UK is prolific and a wide range of services are now available though this channel. The government set out to address the problem that links from Hansard (the transcripts of Parliamentary debates) were not maintained over time and that therefore there was need for some long-term storage and stewardship of information, including maintaining access. Further investigation revealed that linking was key, not only in maintaining access to information, but also to the discovery of information. This resulted in a project that affects the entire  government Web estate, with a solution leveraging the basic building blocks of the Internet (DNS) and the Web (HTTP and URIs) in a pragmatic way, to ensure that an infrastructure is in place to provide access to important information both now and in the future.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
William D. King ◽  
L. Larry Hamm ◽  
Daniel J. McCabe ◽  
Charles A. Nash ◽  
Fernando F. Fondeur

2008 ◽  
Vol 1107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike T. Harrison ◽  
Charlie R. Scales

AbstractSeveral glass compositions are currently under investigation for immobilisation of the separated PuO2 that has been produced as a result of civil nuclear fuel reprocessing in the UK. Whilst a final decision on the fate of what ultimately will be over 100 tonnes of plutonium has yet to be made, all options for the disposition of this material are currently being investigated by Nexia Solutions Ltd on behalf of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA).As one of the immobilisation options, vitrification in borosilicate glass could potentially provide a criticality-safe and stable waste form with durability suitable for long term storage and subsequent repository disposal. From an initial experimental survey of potential candidates, three borosilicate compositions were selected for a more detailed study of the waste loading and chemical durability: lanthanide borosilicate (LaBS), alkali tin silicate (ATS) and high-lanthanide alkali borosilicate (modified-MW). In these inactive tests, hafnium was used as the surrogate for plutonium. This paper describes a range of static leach tests that were undertaken in order to understand the overall durability of the waste forms, as well as the release rates of the Pusurrogate when compared to any neutrons poisons present in the glass. For the LaBS compositions it was found that the release rate of gadolinium was potentially slightly higher than that of hafnium, although both were as low as 10-5 to 10-6 g m2 day-1. The potential implications for long-term repository behaviour are discussed.


2001 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Baronas ◽  
F. Ivanauskas ◽  
I. Juodeikienė ◽  
A. Kajalavičius

A model of moisture movement in wood is presented in this paper in a two-dimensional-in-space formulation. The finite-difference technique has been used in order to obtain the solution of the problem. The model was applied to predict the moisture content in sawn boards from pine during long term storage under outdoor climatic conditions. The satisfactory agreement between the numerical solution and experimental data was obtained.


Diabetes ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 519-523 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. M. Beattie ◽  
J. H. Crowe ◽  
A. D. Lopez ◽  
V. Cirulli ◽  
C. Ricordi ◽  
...  

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