Research: Glasses, Cements and Waste Immobilisation
Research Summary and Principal Aims
The department is historically strong in glasses and cements research with international reputations in both. The work in progress is well illustrated in the web sites for our interdisciplinary Centres in Glass Research and for Cement and Concrete. More recently these strengths have been focussed and extended by the development of an Immobilisation Science Laboratory (ISL), established as a BNFL-University Research Alliance with £2M initial funding from BNFL. This activity has combined the abilities of geologists, ceramicists, glass technologists, crystallographers and modellers to work on the fundamental issues concerning immobilisation of radioactive (and other toxic) waste in glass, cement or ceramic matrices. For more details about some of these activities please visit our research group websites.
Visit the Immobilisation Science Laboratory website
Visit the Centre for Glass Research website
Visit the Centre for Cement and Concrete website
Selected Projects
- Modelling the physical and fluid dynamic environments around deep borehole disposals of radioactive wastes (EPSRC: £149,000)
- Reduction and cleaning of waste within lead smelting (HJ Enthoven & Sons: £124,491)
- Strategies for the disposition of separated PuO2: Phase IIB (BNFL: £286,426)
- Thermodynamic modelling on the behaviour of uranium in cementitious matrices (NDA: £40,150)
- Keeping the nuclear option open (EPSRC: £533,519)
- Synthesis and study of ceramic waste forms for the actinides immobilisation (Royal Society: £12,000)
- Development of new and improved leaded glass systems for ceramic on-glaze decoration (KTP: £115,816)
Key publications
- F.G.F. Gibb, K.J. Taylor & B.E. Burakov. (2007). The ‘granite encapsulation’ route to the safe disposal of Pu and other actinides, J. Nuclear Materials, doi:10.1016/j.jnucmat.2007.08.018.
- R.J. Short, R.J. Hand, N.C. Hyatt, G. Mobus. (2005). Environment and oxidation state of molybdenum in simulated high level nuclear waste glass compositions, Journal of Nuclear Materials, 340, 179-186.
- Gibb, F.G.F., McTaggart, N.A., Travis, K.P., Burley, D. & Hesketh, K.W. (2007). High-density support matrices: key to the deep borehole disposal of spent nuclear fuel. Journal of Nuclear Materials, doi:10.1016/j.jnucmat.2007.08.017.
- P.A. Bingham and R.J. Hand. (2005). Vitrified metal finishing wastes: I. Composition, density and chemical durability, J. Hazardous Mater., 119 125-133.
- P.A. Bingham, J.M. Parker, T. Searle, I. Smith. (2007). Local structure and medium range ordering of tetrahedrally coordinated Fe3+ ions in alkali – alkaline earth – silica glasses, J. Non-Cryst. Solids, 353(24-25), 2479-2494.
- M.I. Ojovan, W.E. Lee. (2007). ‘New Developments in Glassy Nuclear Wasteforms’. Nova Science Publishers, 136pp.
- K. P. Travis, M. Bankhead, K. Good & S. L. Owens. (2007) New parametrization method for dissipative particle dynamics, Journal of Chemical Physics, 127, 014109-1 to 12.
- G. Yang, G. Möbus, R.J. Hand. (2006). Cerium and Boron Chemistry in Doped Borosilicate Glasses Examined by EELS, Micron, 37, 433-441.
People
- Professor Fergus Gibb, NDA Professor of Petrology & Geochemistry, has interests in geological disposal of nuclear wastes, especially higher activity wastes and alternative disposal concepts to the ‘mined repository’ for spent fuel and other high-level wastes.
- Dr Günter Möbus, Reader in Electron Microscopy and Materials Science, is interested in characterisation of chemistry and irradiation phenomena in glasses and glass nanocomposites using TEM and related spectroscopies.
- Professor John Parker, Emeritus Professor of Glass Science and Engineering, has key current interests in glass structural analysis particularly using information derived by optical spectroscopy, and the processes involved in glass crystallisation.
- Dr Russell Hand, Reader in Glasses and Ceramics, has wide ranging research interests in glass and ceramic science, with particular emphases on mechanical properties and waste immobilisation.
- Professor Neil Hyatt, Professor of Nuclear Materials Chemistry, his research is focussed on the design, processing and performance of glass and ceramic materials for the immobilisation of nuclear wastes.
- Dr Hajime Kinoshita, Lecturer in Materials Chemistry, his research is based on thermodynamics for noble fabrication and characterisation of inorganic materials for environmental-friendly applications.
- Dr Karl Travis, Senior Lecturer in Modelling Materials, interests lie the application of Theoretical Physics to problems in Materials Science and Engineering, spanning several length and time scales, including: development of new simulation techniques, atomic structure of glass and ceramic wasteforms, transport properties of nanoconfined materials and continuum modelling of material failure.