Modelling of glasses as nuclear waste forms
Reference Number
EP/R004870/1
Title
Modelling of glasses as nuclear waste forms
Status
Completed
Energy Categories
Nuclear Fission and Fusion(Nuclear Fission, Nuclear supporting technologies)
Research Types
Basic and strategic applied research
Science and Technology Fields
PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND MATHEMATICS (Physics)
UKERC Cross Cutting Characterisation
Not Cross-cutting
Principal Investigator
Dr K Trachenko
Physics and Astronomy
Queen Mary University of London
Physics and Astronomy
Queen Mary University of London
Award Type
Standard
Funding Source
EPSRC
Start Date
04 December 2017
End Date
03 December 2020
Duration
36 months
Total Grant Value
£367,991
Industrial Sectors
Energy
Region
London
Programme
Energy : Energy
Investigators
Principal Investigator
Dr K Trachenko, Physics and Astronomy, Queen Mary University of London
Other Investigator
Professor MT Dove, Physics and Astronomy, Queen Mary University of London
Web Site
Objectives
Abstract
This proposal addresses the pressing need to find suitable methods to safely encapsulate nuclear waste. This is required in order to make the nuclear industry sustainable and is also necessary for the environmental reasons due to large amount of legacy waste already accumulated. We model new types of glasses as encapsulation matrices and perform state-of-the-art molecular dynamics simulations to understand the stability of glasses and their suitability for long-term encapsulation of nuclear waste.We calculate several important properties of novel glass compositions including the activation energy for crystallization and phase separation as well as structure. We compare our results with the structural and thermodynamic experiments performed by our US partners. This will enable us to gain atomistic understanding of what governs stability of glasses at the microscopic level and predict their long-term performance.
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Added to Database
07/01/19
