An active materials laboratory for the UK synchrotron with associated equipment

Diamond Light Source is the UK's national light source , currently the capability for preparing all but the most inactive samples on site does not exist, making it hard for Users who wish to do experiments that involve manipulation of samples at the point of measurement to do experiments with radioactive samples at the facility.

We will build and equip an active materials laboratory to enable users to manipulate and prepare most active samples to measure on the Diamond synchrotron beamlines. The laboratory will have a dry lab for materials preparation such as engineering materials used in nuclear power stations, a wet lab to handles samples in solution or in contact with solution such as environmental samples. The lab will have a dedicated counting room to check the activity of the samples brought or made on site and also a safe storage room. We will also procure a cell and oven suitable for the loading rig being acquired by I12 to enable active materials mechanical properties to be examined at temperature in particular atmospheres. This cell and oven are necessary to understand the impact of prolonged radiation of the mechanical performance of a range of materials used in nuclear fission and fusion facilities.

The laboratory will enable a wide range of experimental research on the synchrotron using active materials including engineering studies of advanced materials after irradiation , understanding the behaviour of radionuclides when encapsulated in materials such as glass for storage as waste. Understanding the way radionuclides behave in the environment to influence clean-up strategy after accidental or deliberate release of radionuclides in the environment.

The principal impact of the Active Materials Laboratory and its associated equipment will be made through the research enabled by it. In that way the main beneficiaries of it are the users who will be able to do experiments at Diamond, that were previously impossible and their collaborators in the nuclear industry, who will learn information about such things as the changes in the structural behaviour of advanced materials after irradiation and the way radionuclides behave in contact with geological materials.

The impact of the research will be reinforced by the researchers disseminating their results more widely through published papers, presentations at international meetings.
The nuclear industry will benefit from this research by learning about, for example:
> advanced materials properties to better inform the construction of new nuclear facilities and also about the safe lifetime of existing facilities,
> more about how materials used to contain radionuclides in waste will behave in the conditions that pertain in a geological disposal facility
> more about the condition of the current inventory of stored nuclear materials.

Furthermore a number of AML ECR users will become experienced practitioners of synchrotron radiation (SR) experiments; this will equip them well in their future research careers when they have research questions that SR can help address..

In addition to this the Diamond communications team will aid researchers to promote their research findings in the wider public arena through assisting with press releases and setting up media interviews.

Diamond will through the medium of interactions with the public (open days for school students and the general public, stands at science festivals) highlight the active materials laboratory's presence at the synchrotron and discuss the need to better understand materials throughout the nuclear cycle and how SR enables us to do that.