89 research outputs found
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Recycle of scrap plutonium-238 oxide fuel to support future radioisotope applications
The Nuclear Materials Technology (NMT) Division of Los Alamos National Laboratory has initiated a development program to recover and purify plutonium-238 oxide from impure feed sources in a glove box environment. A glove box line has been designed and a chemistry flowsheet developed to perform this recovery task at large scale. The initial demonstration effort focused on purification of {sup 238}PuO{sub 2} fuel by HNO{sub 3}/HF dissolution, followed by plutonium(III) oxalate precipitation and calcination to an oxide. Decontamination factors for most impurities of concern in the fuel were very good, producing {sup 238}PuO{sub 2} fuel significantly better in purity than specified by General Purpose Heat Source (GPHS) fuel powder specifications. The results are encouraging for recycle of relatively impure plutonium-238 oxide and scrap residue items into fuel for useful applications. A sufficient quantity of purified {sup 238}PuO{sub 2} fuel was recovered from the process to allow fabrication of a GPHS unit for testing. The high specific activity of plutonium-238 magnifies the consequences and concerns of radioactive waste generation. This work places an emphasis on development of waste minimization technologies to complement the aqueous processing operation. Results from experiments allowing more time for neutralized solutions of plutonium-238 to precipitate resulted in decontamination to about 1 millicurie/L. Combining ultrafiltration treatment with addition of a water-soluble polymer designed to coordinate Pu, allowed solutions to be decontaminated to about 1 microcurie/L. Efforts continue to develop a capability for efficient, safe, cost-effective, and environmentally acceptable methods to recover and purify {sup 238}PuO{sub 2} fuel
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Clinical outcome of patients treated with 3D conformal radiation therapy 3D-CRT for prostate cancer on RTOG 9406
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Update of toxicity following 3D radiation therapy for prostate cancer on RTOG 9406
Evidence of lethal and sublethal injury in food-borne bacterial pathogens exposed to high-intensity pulsed-plasma gas discharges
To apply scanning electron microscopy, image analysis and a fluorescent viability stain to assess lethal and sublethal injury in food-borne bacteria exposed to pulsed-plasma gas discharges (PPGD). The fluorescent redox probe 5-cyano-2,3-ditolyl tetrazolium chloride (CTC) was used for enumerating actively respiring cells of Campylobacter jejuni, Escherichia coli, Listeria monocytogenes, Staphylococcus aureus and Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium that were suspended in sterile water at 4°C and exposed to separate PPGD and heat treatments. While there was good agreement between use of respiratory staining (RS) and direct-selective agar plate counting (PC) for enumerating untreated bacteria, there were c. 1 and 3 log-unit differences in surviving cell numbers per millilitre for test organisms subjected to PPGD and heat treatments respectively, when enumerated by these different viability indicators. PPGD-treated bacteria were markedly altered at the cellular level when examined by scanning electron microscopy. Use of this RS method revealed that substantial subpopulations of test bacteria rendered incapable of forming colonies by separate PPGD and heat treatments may remain metabolically active. Use of this RS method offers interesting perspectives on assessing established and novel microbial inactivation methods, and may also provide a better understanding of mechanisms involved in microbial inactivation induced by high-intensity PPGD treatments
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