Chemistry PhD Final Defense — Robert Lusk
About the event
Title: Advancements in the Application of Sol-Gel Chemistry as Surrogate Nuclear Debris
Abstract: Nuclear forensic analysis is a necessary discipline for the enforcement of the United States foreign policies of nuclear deterrence and non-proliferation. As the global situation continues to evolve, further refinement of the methods used by this discipline is necessary to ensure swift and accurate source attribution of nuclear materials. Surrogate nuclear material serves as a valuable tool for testing and improving analytical procedures and operational procedures, particularly regarding post-detonation nuclear forensic analysis. Over the past decade, several groups have developed several techniques designed to produce surrogate nuclear explosion debris. Due to challenges regarding loss of analytes and contamination caused by high temperature processing approaches, there has been a focus on using sol-gel manufacturing techniques to produce this material due to its inherent advantage of low temperature synthesis. However, a considerable amount of research is necessary to improve this process so that it can effectively support the mission of the nuclear forensics community. This work seeks to increase the understanding of how different processes occurring within sol-gel glass at various stages influence the retention of both stable and radioactive dopants. It will achieve this by focusing on the following efforts:
1) Demonstrate the capability of sol-gel glass to encapsulate and retain radionuclides at low temperatures. The limitations of this will also be investigated as a function of annealing temperature
2) Investigate the effect of different catalysts have on the initial capture and retention of fission products.
3) Characterize how the incorporation of metal nitrate salts affects the macro and micro-structure of the glass using FT-IR and SEM-EDX analysis
4) Examine how changes in ionic size and charge influence the effect the dopant has on the structure of the glass.