Scientific Basis for Nuclear Waste Management

MRS Advances is accepting full-paper submissions on Energy and Environment topics related to the symposium topic Scientific Basis for Nuclear Waste Management from the 2020 MRS Spring/Fall Meeting. Submissions, the review process, and the final decision are not contingent on presentation at the meeting itself. MRS Advances publishes short papers that provide a “snapshot” of an advance within the field of materials research. Such work may include important early indications from a research project that has not yet reached a conclusion, or related results that are significant but not central to the goal of the project. The scientific methods and logic should be rigorous, technically sound, and of interest to other specialists in the area of research. Of particular interest are topics in Scientific Basis for Nuclear Waste Management: • Waste forms–Design, formulation, fabrication; effect of disposal conditions and radiation on properties of waste forms (SNF, glass, ceramic, cement…) • Development and scale up of processing technologies–Melt processing in joule-heated ceramic melter and cold crucible, hot isostatic pressing, cementation, and steam reforming • Behavior of spent nuclear fuel materials in different disposal environments • Geological disposal of radioactive wastes–Concepts, designs and materials; container corrosion; engineered barrier systems; radionuclide solubility, speciation, sorption and migration • Materials for sequestration and immobilization of volatile and long lived radionuclides, e.g., iodine-129 and technetium-99 • Molten salt reactor waste and effluent management strategies • Strategies, processes and materials for the disposition of plutonium and fissile materials from civil and defense stockpiles • National waste management programs • Development and enhancement of safeguards concepts, methods and techniques, including development of analytical methods for nuclear forensics advancement • Cross-cutting topics–Recent developments and novel techniques in solid and liquid characterization, sensing and monitoring of radionuclides, and modeling tools