Department of Chemistry Seminar – Dr. Michel Sassi

About the event

Speaker:  Dr. Michel Sassi

Host:  Dr. Qiang (Jack) Zhang

Title:  The Physical and Chemical Consequences of Radioactive Transmutation

Abstract:

Radioactive transmutation is an inevitable event that occurs for every radioisotope species. Infamously labeled as the “transmutation problem” in the 80’s, it has been at the origin of worries in the nuclear materials community because of its potential to compromise a nuclear waste form over time by inducing chemical, electronic, and volume changes that could disrupt the crystalline lattice. While this transmutation problem has been known for many years, studies have been rare as experiments are highly challenging and a solution to the problem is not obvious. While radioactive transmutation has obvious disadvantages, it could also present some opportunities to design unique materials with novel chemistry, not accessible by conventional synthesis. To fast track the potential outcomes emerging from radioactive transmutation, we have developed a computational framework based on density functional theory to quantify the physical and chemical consequences of transmutation on the host material. These numerical simulations have been applied to a range of systems with impacts in nuclear materials, hydrocarbons, biomolecules, and environmental science.