Chemistry of Geological Disposal

2 December 2009
Chancellor's Conference Centre, University of Manchester

Over the last few years, the UK has started a programme to dispose of its radioactive waste legacy, accumulated over more than 50 years of industrial scale nuclear power. While the wastes will be disposed of underground in a geological disposal facility, we are only at the earliest stages of finding a location for, and planning the design of, the disposal facility. So it was timely for the Radiochemistry Group to host a meeting on “The Chemistry of Geological Disposal” on December 2nd 2009, in Manchester. This attracted 67 delegates, including a very pleasing 34 PhD students and postdoctoral researchers. 

The programme was headed by Pierre van Iseghem from SCK/CEN, Belgium, who described his team’s work on high level waste disposal in clay. The later speakers covered many other facets of geological disposal, ranging from Mike James (Sellafield Ltd) on alternative treatment processes for Intermediate Level Wastes, and their implications for disposal, to regulatory aspects of disposal (Paul Abraitis, Environment Agency), geological analogues for the disposal environment (Tony Milodowski, British Geological Survey), criticality in the subsurface (Mike Wood, Nuclear Decommissioning Authority) and the effects of radiation in the disposal system (Simon Pimblott, Manchester). All the talks demonstrated clearly both the chemical subtleties of geological disposal and the way in which chemical phenomena are key to so many aspects of this complex process. 

In a change of pace, the meeting also incorporated the second presentation of the Bill Newton Award, given by the Radiochemistry Group to distinguished mid-career radiochemists. This year, there were several very strong nominations and eventually the Group committee decided that two candidates could not be separated and made two awards, to Robin Taylor from the National Nuclear Laboratory, Sellafield, and to Vladimir Volkovich, from Ekaterinburg. Both gave presentations on aspects of nuclear fuel separation, Robin on advances in Purex chemistry, and Vladimir on separation in high temperature molten salts. Both speakers gave clear insight into the way in which chemical understanding at the molecular scale could be used to improve and develop large scale processes, and also into the immense technical challenges of working with highly radioactive elements.

All the presentations are available to download below.