FY2010 - Oak Ridge National Laboratory

05573
Rapid Radiochemistry Applications in Nuclear Forensics
H. L. Hall, J. R. Garrison, and D. Hanson
Director’s R&D Fund—
National Security Science and Technology
Project Description
We will develop fundamentally new capabilities and scientific approaches for the nuclear forensics field.
We will investigate new sample preparation and radiochemical separations methods that have the
potential to dramatically shorten the time frame in which nuclear forensics can provide quantitative data
for interpretation, as well as develop critically needed postdetonation debris surrogates that will enable a
broad range of further developmental and programmatic activities. Key thermodynamic parameters
needed for gas-phase separations will be determined. Additionally, this research will engage and train
students and post-docs in radiochemistry, nuclear forensics, and nuclear security.
Mission Relevance
Nuclear forensics—the science and tools needed to identify the source of illicit nuclear materials or to
reconstruct the source of a nuclear terrorist attack—is currently a nascent field and is part of the federal
government’s overall mission in securing the common defense. Multiple agencies have mission roles in
the nuclear forensics field. These include DOE, through the National Nuclear Security Administration
(NA-22 and NA-45); the Department of Homeland Security (Domestic Nuclear Detection Office); and the
Department of Defense (Defense Threat Reduction Agency). Agencies such as the Department of State
and the FBI are users of nuclear forensics data as well.
Results and Accomplishments
We have continued to explore the gas-phase chemistry approach, as this has the potential for much greater
increases in the speed of analysis and we are elucidating new opportunities for further scientific research
in this area. We have completed a thorough review of the relevant scientific literature for existing work on
the applications of thermochromatography to radiochemical separations (roughly 500 publications). This
review has evaluated the existing work—most of which has previously been applied only to the
separation and detection of short-lived nuclides in accelerator-based new element/new isotope production
experiments—to the challenges of nuclear forensics. Our work has identified that there are significant
gaps in the thermodynamic data available, and that the existing literature provides relatively few cases in
which the adsorption enthalpy is known for a suite of relevant species. We are now planning to examine
the possibility of modeling the species-wall interactions for the cases where the thermodynamic data are
known to see if we can reproduce experimental data so as to expand the predictability of separations. We
are also exploring the operational parameter space with our model so as to determine the optional
configuration(s) for separations. Two graduate students at the University of Tennessee began working on
this project in FY 2010, and the work forms the core of their graduate research.
Information Shared
Garrison, J. R., D. E. Hanson, and H. L. Hall. 2010. “Monte Carlo Analysis of Thermochromatography
for Nuclear Forensics.” Fall 2010 American Chemical Society Meeting, August.
Hanson, D. E., J. R. Garrison, and H. L. Hall. 2010. “Thermochromatography as a Separations Method
for Nuclear Forensics.” Fall 2010 American Chemical Society Meeting, August.
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