HADES

A User Facility for High Activity Decommissioning Engineering Science

PI: Prof Russell Hand, Dr Lewis Blackburn, Dr Clare Thorpe

The HADES Facility at the University of Sheffield is established as a national centre of research excellence to support the UK nuclear decommissioning and disposal programme, as part of the National Nuclear User Facility. The Facility is accommodated within 500 m2 of high quality radiomaterials chemistry laboratories, refurbished in 2015, with state-of-the-art equipment and instrumentation for materials formulation, processing, characterisation and performance assessment.

The HADES Facility is joint home to the newly established Plutonium Ceramics Academic Hub, funded by the UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. The Hub will deliver advanced ceramic materials science with the aim of supporting the implementation of NDA strategy for separated plutonium. The University of Sheffield’s expertise in wasteform development and performance assessments, ceramic processing and advanced characterisation techniques will support the delivery of this substantial and focussed research programme. The HADES Facility is also home to expertise in glass/vitreous materials and cementitious wasteforms/encapsulants in support of the disposal of the UK’s high and intermediate level waste inventory.

 

All HADES laboratories are designed and operated as supervised areas, for research with limited inventories of radioactive materials (unsealed sources). Controlled area laboratories enable work with MBq quantities of α and β/γ nuclides. The integrated nature of the Facility enables acceleration of materials optimisation, through rapid feedback between synthesis and characterisation.

The HADES Facility is organised into a suite of capability platforms for working with radioactive materials:

  • Radiological hot isostatic pressing (HIP). HADES offers a flagship capability to process wasteform simulants containing U and/or Th up to 1350 °C and 200 MPa using the Active Furnace Isolation Chamber (AFIC) plug-in component. The processing window for non-radioactive materials is higher, with furnace capability up to 2000 °C.

  • Materials processing. Thermal treatment of radioactive materials (containing U, Th and Tc) up to 1800 °C under controlled atmosphere with off gas analysis and quenching capability. Milling capability of radioactive powders from small scale (< 1 g) to ca. 100 g scale using a suite of dedicated ball, roller and vibro-mills.

  • Wasteform alteration, dissolution and radiochemical analysis. Suite of ovens and equipment for short and long duration batch and dynamic corrosion experiments. Inductively coupled plasma optical emission and mass spectroscopy (ICP-OES, ICP-MS); ion chromatography; liquid scintillation counting.

  • Diffraction and spectroscopy. X-ray diffraction (room temperature; high temperature and controlled atmosphere to 1200 °C; grazing angle capability); Raman, UV-VIS and IR, 57Fe Mossbauer; X-ray absorption and emission spectroscopy (XES, XANES, EXAFS) using the in-house Scanning Transmission XAS User Facility.

  • Active microscopy and EPMA analysis. High resolution electron microscopy capability including: optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive X-ray analysis; and, via the Sheffield Hub of the Royce Institute – electron probe microanalysis, atomic force microscopy and vertical scanning interferometry.

  • Radiometrics and radiological protection. High resolution γ-spectroscopy; fixed personal contamination monitors in controlled areas; a suite of large area survey meters, contamination monitors, and dose rate detectors are available; personal dosimetry available as required.

The HADES Facility was established with investment of £1M by UKRI EPSRC and the University of Sheffield, in new state-of-the-art materials processing and characterisation equipment, to enable higher throughput research and work with high radionuclide inventories. The Facility additionally incorporates prior investment of ca. £8M in laboratory refurbishment, space, and equipment, within the MIDAS facility, and allied Royce Institute, to provide a single point of user access. Access to the STX Facility, the UK's first capability for laboratory based X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy, is also available.

A team of highly experienced researchers and experimental officers support operation of the Facility, providing user training, supervision, and equipment calibration and servicing. Access to the facility may be in person, remote, or sample mail in.

 

HADES Facility Poster:

Scientist performing inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy

Inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy

 

Scientist performing Raman microspectroscopy

Raman microspectroscopy

 

Scientists in analytical radiochemistry laboratory

Analytical radiochemistry laboratory

 

Scientist performing multimodal thermal analysis

Multimodal thermal analysis

 

Availability

For any further information or to discuss the facility capabilities, please contact Prof Russell Hand (r.hand@sheffield.ac.uk), Dr Martin Stennett (m.c.stennett@sheffield.ac.uk) and Dr Lewis Blackburn (lewis.blackburn@sheffield.ac.uk).

Reference

The HADES Facility for High Activity Decommissioning Engineering & Science: part of the UK National Nuclear User Facility, N.C. Hyatt, C.L. Corkhill, M.C. Stennett, R.J. Hand, L.J. Gardner, IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering, 818, 012022, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1088/1757-899X/818/1/012022.

 

Text and images © University of Sheffield.