Nuclear waste management and spent nuclear fuel disposal ubiquitously involves chemically complex materials that are exposed to extreme conditions including pressure, temperature and radiation along varying gradients. These effects can dramatically influence the material properties and behaviours of these materials arising from nuclear energy production which can subsequently affect their handling and subsequent disposal.
The Nuclear Waste Management Solid State Chemistry Team is devoted to studying fundamental processes such as the nature of chemical bonding and condensed physical behaviour of key nuclear materials arising from the nuclear fuel cycle and energy production. The group uses a combination of experimental and simulation methods on laboratory synthesized compounds to explore single effect processes at high resolution which are then often cross examined against actual materials arising directly from spent nuclear fuel waste streams.
The Team readily employs high resolution techniques available at large scale measurement facilities such as the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), ion irradiation sources to simulate radiation damage for instance at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research in addition to using advanced computing infrastructure available within the Forschungszentrum including the Juelich Super Computing Centre (JSC).
Nuclear Solid State Chemistry 