First report from an advanced radiological inventory for a spent fuel reprocessing plant

With the development of the dismantling industry in a context of ever-stricter requirements for risk mastery techniques, strengthened means of radiological monitoring are sought. For obvious safety reasons it is, for example, impossible to pilot a dismantling worksite without a good knowledge of the quality and the level of source terms. Source term control is constantly improving throughout the life cycle of nuclear facilities, particularly thanks to new requirements in the dismantling industry. Scenario preparation and nuclear waste management at the factory level, strictly governed by safety rules, provide fertile ground for methodological or technical innovations. This means new combinations of data or the development of special detectors to locate or characterise radioactive sources in hostile environments, and enhanced means for detector positioning, in other words robots. This paper's objective is to illustrate the logic of these developments as implemented for the characterisation of a source term in a pilot reprocessing facility on the CEA's Marcoule site

Reuse of medical face masks in domestic and community settings without sacrificing safety: Ecological and economical lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic

The need for personal protective equipment increased exponentially in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. To cope with the mask shortage during springtime 2020, a French consortium was created to find ways to reuse medical and respiratory masks in healthcare departments. The consortium addressed the complex context of the balance between cleaning medical masks in a way that maintains their safety and functionality for reuse, with the environmental advantage to manage medical disposable waste despite the current mask designation as single-use by the regulatory frameworks. We report a Workflow that provides a quantitative basis to determine the safety and efficacy of a medical mask that is decontaminated for reuse. The type IIR polypropylene medical masks can be washed up to 10 times, washed 5 times and autoclaved 5 times, or washed then sterilized with radiations or ethylene oxide, without any degradation of their filtration or breathability properties. There is loss of the antiprojection properties. The Workflow rendered the medical masks to comply to the AFNOR S76-001 standard as “type 1 non-sanitory usage masks”. This qualification gives a legal status to the Workflow-treated masks and allows recommendation for the reuse of washed medical masks by the general population, with the significant public health advantage of providing better protection than cloth-tissue masks. Additionally, such a legal status provides a basis to perform a clinical trial to test the masks in real conditions, with full compliance with EN 14683 norm, for collective reuse. The rational reuse of medical mask and their end-of-life management is critical, particularly in pandemic periods when decisive turns can be taken. The reuse of masks in the general population, in industries, or in hospitals (but not for surgery) has significant advantages for the management of waste without degrading the safety of individuals wearing reused masks

Que m'arrive-t-il ?

En posant la question des rapports entre événement et littérature, on engage un dialogue à plusieurs voix entre les différentes époques de la production littéraire et entre les divers territoires de la critique. Il s'agit également d'échanger avec les disciplines des sciences humaines dont le voisinage est aujourd'hui nécessaire, polémique et complémentaire – avec ces disciplines qui envisagent le rapport de l'homme à l'histoire, au temps humain et aux représentations qui y donnent accès

In vivo generation of haematopoietic stem/progenitor cells from bone marrow-derived haemogenic endothelium

International audienc

Comparative performances of birnessite and cryptomelane MnO as electrode material in neutral aqueous lithium salt for supercapacitor application

International audienceNa-doped Birnessite-type manganese oxide (δ-MnO2) has been synthesized using the chemical method and characterized through X-ray diffraction and SEM, showing the lamellar structure and high crystal structure. A comparative study of the electrochemical performances of this material with those of the commercial Cryptomelane-type MnO2 has then been undertaken in ten neutral aqueous electrolytes for supercapacitor applications. Aqueous electrolytes, containing a lithium salt, LiX (where X = SO42-, NO3-, CH3CO2-, CH3SO3-, ClO4-, C7H15CO2-, TFSI-, Beti-, BOB-, or Lact-), have been first prepared under neutral pH conditions to reach the salt concentration, providing the maximum in conductivity. Their transport properties are then investigated through conductivities, viscosities, and self-diffusion coefficient measurements. Second, the thermal behaviors of these electrolytic aqueous solutions are then evaluated by using a differential scanning calorimeter from (213.15 to 473.15) K in order to access their liquid range temperatures. Cyclic voltammograms (CV) in three electrode configurations are thereafter investigated using Na Birnessite and Cryptomelane as working electrode material from (−0.05 to 1.5) V versus Ag/AgCl at various sweep rates from (2 to 100) mV*s-1. According to anion nature/structure and manganese oxide material type, different CV responses are observed, presenting a pure capacitive profile for Beti- or C6H13CO2- and an additional pseudocapacitive signal for the smallest anions, such as ClO4- and NO3-. The capacitances, energies, and efficiencies are finally calculated. These results indicate clearly that electrolytes based on a mineral lithium salt under neutral pH condition and high salt concentration (up to 5 mol*L-1) have better electrochemical performances than organic ones, up to 1.4 V with good material stability and capacity retention. The relationship between transport properties, electrostatic and steric hindrance considerations of hydrated ions, and their electrochemical performances is discussed in order to understand further the lithium intercalation-deintercalation processes in the lamellar or tunnel structure of investigated MnO2