Nuclear Forensic Applications in Geoscience and Radiochemistry
A special issue of Minerals (ISSN 2075-163X). This special issue belongs to the section "Mineral Geochemistry and Geochronology".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2019) | Viewed by 21236
Special Issue Editor
Interests: isotope geochemistry; geochronology; laser ablation-ICP-MS; nuclear forensics; geochemistry; igneous petrology; carbonatites
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
A vital component of global nuclear security is the prevention of the theft and trafficking of nuclear materials. Hence, the primary objectives of forensic analysis of (pre-detonation) nuclear materials are to determine the provenance of interdicted materials so as to deter actions that would utilize illicit nuclear material, and to monitor compliance with the United Nations Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Nuclear forensic analysis exploits the fact that certain signatures are unique to the geologic origin for a sample of interest. The different types of critical evidence sought for forensic purposes typically include morphological attributes, isotopic measurements, age data, and trace element compositions (in particular, rare earth element concentrations) of nuclear materials at both bulk and high spatial resolution scales.
This Special Issue invites contributions that focus on reporting forensic investigations of nuclear materials covering the early part of the nuclear fuel cycle, from natural uranium-rich ores/minerals (e.g., uraninite) to uranium oxide concentrates (UOCs) and nuclear fuel pellets using a wide variety of established and novel analytical methods and approaches. This includes the examination of morphological features of nuclear materials that develop due to changing environmental conditions and/or aging, identifying chemical and/or isotopic signatures related to U metal processing, multi-component statistical analysis of existing or new chemical/isotopic databases, establishing reference materials for micro-analyses conducted at high-spatial resolution, and corroborating and/or developing new baseline forensic signatures in raw ores from varying uranium deposit types.
Dr. Antonio Simonetti
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- Uranium
- Uraninite
- Uranium ore concentrate
- Nuclear fuel cycle
- Source attribution
- Nuclear nonproliferation
- Nuclear forensics
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