Argonne-SRNL agreement supports critical DOE, national priorities
Joint research efforts to focus on nuclear energy, environmental
management
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ARGONNE, Ill. (May 15, 2008) – Argonne National Laboratory has signed a memorandum
of understanding (MOU) with Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) to
collaborate on nuclear energy and environmental management research projects
in support of critical U.S. Energy Department (DOE) needs and other important
national priorities.
"The MOU allows Argonne to remain a leader in nuclear energy research," Argonne
Director Robert Rosner said. "Argonne has the nation's largest concentration
of scientists and engineers involved in fast-reactor design and nuclear fuel
separations and processing technologies – expertise that is essential to developing
next-generation nuclear energy systems, a key component of President Bush's
Global
Nuclear Energy Partnership."
The agreement will bring together the strengths of the two national laboratories,
including SRNL's applied science and engineering expertise and their nuclear
facilities for the safe handling and study of highly radioactive materials.
The SRNL facilities include the Shielded
Cells, where highly skilled employees
use remote manipulator arms to perform work with radioactive samples, while
safely protected behind thick shielding. Argonne brings to the partnership
scientific and engineering expertise and state-of-the-art radiological facilities
for studying chemical phenomena at the smallest scale. Among the facilities
that may be used in understanding materials properties include the Advanced
Photon Source, the brightest X-ray beam in the western hemisphere.
"This agreement blends the key skills and capabilities from SRNL and
Argonne for advancing U.S. nuclear energy capabilities," said G. Todd
Wright, SRNL laboratory director. "SRNL's core competencies for the development
and deployment of applied technology solutions for safe nuclear facilities
operation will help this partnership make advances that support important energy
independence initiatives for the nation."
Argonne and SRNL will collaborate in areas in which the two research facilities
have complementary strengths, including actinide chemistry, separations science
and technology, and computational chemistry and modeling. "Advances in
these research areas are vital for any U.S. expansion of the use of safe, clean
nuclear energy, closing the nuclear fuel cycle and management of legacy nuclear
materials," said Mark Peters, Argonne's program manager for the Global
Nuclear Energy Project (GNEP) and the deputy to the associate laboratory director
of energy sciences and engineering.
Actinide chemistry involves the study of radioactive heavy metals, such as
uranium, neptunium and plutonium, that are indigenous to nuclear energy processes.
Maintenance of a core competency associated with actinide science is critical
to sustain continued growth of nuclear programs in the United States and to
effectively treat legacy nuclear materials. Argonne's actinide experience
dates back to the earliest days of the Manhattan Project and is focused on
basic scientific understanding and knowledge. SRNL's experience, which dates
back to the early 1950s, has been generally focused on production-scale deployment,
including the design and development of specialized technologies for the safe
characterization, purification, stabilization and disposition of these materials.
Separations science involves the design, study and application of processes
for separating mixtures of compounds into their component substances. The two
laboratories have made significant contributions to the field over their histories.
These contributions date to the earliest years of the U.S. nuclear enterprise
and continue to support such national initiatives as GNEP. The labs will develop
a joint plan for advancing separations science and technology programs to meet
the current and future needs of DOE with a focus on the DOE Offices of Nuclear
Energy and Environmental
Management.
Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology.
The nation's first national laboratory, Argonne conducts leading-edge basic
and applied scientific research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne
researchers work closely with researchers from hundreds of companies, universities,
and federal, state and municipal agencies to help them solve their specific
problems, advance America 's scientific leadership and prepare the nation for
a better future. With employees from more than 60 nations, Argonne is managed
by UChicago
Argonne, LLC for
the U.S.
Department of Energy's Office
of Science.
Savannah
River National Laboratory, located in Aiken, S.C., puts science to work to provide applied R&D
solutions in the areas of national and homeland security, energy security, and
environmental management. It serves as the corporate laboratory for DOE's Office
of Environmental Management and is managed for DOE by Washington Savannah River
Company, a subsidiary or the Washington Division of URS Corp.
For more information, please contact Angela Hardin (630/252-5501
or ahardin@anl.gov) at Argonne.
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