PhD position: R&D in support of the development of a Low-Enriched Uranium based radioisotope production target

Under the pressure of international treaties in the frame of non-proliferation, the global civil use of high-enriched uranium is gradually reduced. Two main areas in which high-enriched uranium is used in civil applications are for research reactor fuels and in fission radioisotope (eg. 99Mo) targets. In fact, both applications are very similar, since a radioisotope production target, in essence, is just a small size fuel plate, down to the actual fissile material. With the transition of research reactor fuels to low-enriched fissile materials, higher density uranium compounds have come into use, including silicide (U3Si2) and uranium alloy (U(Mo)) based fuels.

Description

This project associates SCK•CEN, as a centre of excellence in research reactor fuel development/qualification and in radioisotope production, and IRE, a global supplier of radiopharmaceuticals, not in the least fission generated 99Mo. Besides support for the ongoing development of UAl2 based targets in existing projects at SCK•CEN, the PhD project aims at advancing the qualification of identified candidate U compounds (previous thesis work on this was interrupted, but has yielded promising results for certain compounds) for use as fissile materials in radioisotope targets, studying the production and processing characteristics on fresh materials. With the constraints of target production and processing in mind, the project aims at fabrication of a set of selected candidate targets, with and without added Mo in the meat to simulate the fission Mo generated and radioisotope extraction tests. In the process of attempting to reach these technological goals, basic properties of the candidate materials (crystal structures, thermodynamic properties, transformation kinetics, etc.), with their intrinsic scientific importance and merit, will need to be carefully assessed through the use of a variety of available techniques (eg. XRD, TEM, EPMA, thermal interaction, TGA-DTA, etc.).

Nr of positions available : 1

Research Fields

Engineering

Career Stage

Early stage researcher or 0-4 yrs (Post graduate)

Research Profiles

First Stage Researcher (R1)