PSTEP: Project for solar-terrestrial environment prediction

Kusano, Kanya*; Ichimoto, Kiyoshi*; Ishii, Mamoru*; Miyoshi, Yoshizumi*; Yoden, Shigeo*; Akiyoshi, Hideharu*; Asai, Ayumi*; Ebihara, Yusuke*; Fujiwara, Hitoshi*; Goto, Tadanori*; et al.

Earth, Planets and Space (Internet), 73(1), p.159_1 - 159_29, 2021/12

https://doi.org/10.1186/s40623-021-01486-1

The PSTEP is a nationwide research collaboration in Japan and was conducted from April 2015 to March 2020, supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan. It has made a significant progress in space weather research and operational forecasts, publishing over 500 refereed journal papers and organizing four international symposiums, various workshops and seminars, and summer school for graduate students at Rikubetsu in 2017. This paper is a summary report of the PSTEP and describes the major research achievements it produced.

Colossal barocaloric effects in plastic crystals

Li, B.*; Kawakita, Yukinobu; Kawamura, Seiko; Sugahara, Takeshi*; Wang, H.*; Wang, J.*; Chen, Y.*; Kawaguchi, Saori*; Kawaguchi, Shogo*; Ohara, Koji*; et al.

Nature, 567(7749), p.506 - 510, 2019/03

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1042-5

Refrigeration is of vital importance for modern society for example, for food storage and air conditioning- and 25 to 30% of the world's electricity is consumed for refrigeration. Current refrigeration technology mostly involves the conventional vapour compression cycle, but the materials used in this technology are of growing environmental concern because of their large global warming potential. As a promising alternative, refrigeration technologies based on solid-state caloric effects have been attracting attention in recent decades. However, their application is restricted by the limited performance of current caloric materials, owing to small isothermal entropy changes and large driving magnetic fields. Here we report colossal barocaloric effects (CBCEs) (barocaloric effects are cooling effects of pressure-induced phase transitions) in a class of disordered solids called plastic crystals. The obtained entropy changes in a representative plastic crystal, neopentylglycol, are about 389 joules per kilogram per kelvin near room temperature. Pressure-dependent neutron scattering measurements reveal that CBCEs in plastic crystals can be attributed to the combination of extensive molecular orientational disorder, giant compressibility and highly anharmonic lattice dynamics of these materials. Our study establishes the microscopic mechanism of CBCEs in plastic crystals and paves the way to next-generation solid-state refrigeration technologies.

Liquid-like thermal conduction in intercalated layered crystalline solids

Li, B.; Wang, H.*; Kawakita, Yukinobu; Zhang, Q.*; Feygenson, M.*; Yu, H. L.*; Wu, D.*; Ohara, Koji*; Kikuchi, Tatsuya*; Shibata, Kaoru; et al.

Nature Materials, 17(3), p.226 - 230, 2018/03

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-017-0004-2

Annual report of Nuclear Emergency Assistance and Training Center (April 1, 2013 - March 31, 2014)

Sato, Takeshi; Muto, Shigeo; Akiyama, Kiyomitsu; Aoki, Kazufumi; Okamoto, Akiko; Kawakami, Takeshi; Kume, Nobuhide; Nakanishi, Chika; Koie, Masahiro; Kawamata, Hiroyuki; et al.

JAEA-Review 2014-048, 69 Pages, 2015/02

JAEA-Review-2014-048.pdf:13.91MB

JAEA was assigned as a designated public institution under the Disaster Countermeasures Basic Act and under the Armed Attack Situations Response Act. Based on these Acts, the JAEA has the responsibility of providing technical support to the national government and/or local governments in case of disaster responses or response in the event of a military attack, etc. In order to fulfill the tasks, the JAEA has established the Emergency Action Plan and the Civil Protection Action Plan. In case of a nuclear emergency, NEAT dispatches specialists of JAEA, supplies the national government and local governments with emergency equipment and materials, and gives technical advice and information. In normal time, NEAT provides various exercises and training courses concerning nuclear disaster prevention to those personnel taking an active part in emergency response institutions of the national and local governments, police, fire fighters, self-defense forces, etc. in addition to the JAEA itself. The NEAT also researches nuclear disaster preparedness and response, and cooperates with international organizations. In the FY2013, the NEAT accomplished the following tasks: (1) Technical support activities as a designated public institution in cooperation with the national and local governments, etc. (2) Human resource development, exercise and training of nuclear emergency response personnel for the national and local governments, etc. (3) Researches on nuclear disaster preparedness and response, and sending useful information (4) International contributions to Asian countries on nuclear disaster preparedness and response in collaboration with the international organizations

Stability of polyvinylpolypyrrolidone against -ray irradiation in HNO media

Nogami, Masanobu*; Sugiyama, Yuichi*; Kawasaki, Takeshi*; Harada, Masayuki*; Kawata, Yoshihisa*; Morita, Yasuji; Kikuchi, Toshiaki*; Ikeda, Yasuhisa*

Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, 296(1), p.423 - 427, 2013/04

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-012-2121-3

Stability of polyvinylpolypyrrolidone (PVPP), a resin with adsorption selectivity to U(VI) in nitric acid media, against -ray irradiation has been examined using HNO solutions of various concentrations. As the result, no clear decrease in the capacity was observed for any samples. Or rather, it was found that the capacity increased by approximately 50% for the PVPP slurry irradiated in 6 M HNO. The infrared spectroscopic study indicates that PVPP degrades by -ray irradiation in HNO from the cleavage of the pyrrolidone ring by the addition of oxygen atom originating from HNO, followed by the formation of chain monoamides with multiple coordinative atoms by the continuous addition of oxygen, finally leading to the generation of primary-amine type anion exchange resin. It is also indicated that all generated functional groups possess adsorptivity to U(VI) in 3 M HNO.

Annual report of Nuclear Emergency Assistance and Training Center (April 1, 2011 - March 31, 2012)

Katagiri, Hiromi; Okuno, Hiroshi; Okamoto, Akiko; Ikeda, Takeshi; Tamura, Kenichi; Nagakura, Tomohiro; Nakanishi, Chika; Yamamoto, Kazuya; Abe, Minako; Sato, Sohei; et al.

JAEA-Review 2012-033, 70 Pages, 2012/08

JAEA-Review-2012-033.pdf:6.38MB

When a nuclear emergency occurs in Japan, JAEA has the responsibility of providing technical support to the National government, local governments, etc., by the Basic Law on Emergency Preparedness and the Basic Plan for Disaster Countermeasures. NEAT of JAEA gives technical advice and information, dispatch specialists as required, supplies with the National Government and local governments emergency equipment and materials. NEAT provides various lectures and training courses concerning nuclear disaster prevention for emergency response organizations at normal time. Concerning the assistance to the Accident of Fukushima No.1 Nuclear Power Station caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake on 11 March, 2011, JAEA assisted activities including environmental radiation monitoring, environmental radioactivity analyses, resident public consulting etc., with its the utmost effort. This annual report summarized these activities of NEAT in the fiscal year 2011.

Development of advanced reprocessing system based on precipitation method using pyrrolidone derivatives as precipitants; Overall evaluation of system

Ikeda, Yasuhisa*; Kawasaki, Takeshi*; Harada, Masayuki*; Nogami, Masanobu*; Kawata, Yoshihisa*; Kim, S.-Y.*; Morita, Yasuji; Chikazawa, Takahiro*; Someya, Hiroshi*; Kikuchi, Toshiaki*

Proceedings of International Conference on Toward and Over the Fukushima Daiichi Accident (GLOBAL 2011) (CD-ROM), 5 Pages, 2011/12

An advanced reprocessing system for spent FBR fuels based on two precipitation processes using pyrrolidone derivatives as precipitants has been developed. Experimental results of precipitation behavior of U, Pu and other elements, the heat- and radiation-resistance of precipitants, the thermal decomposition properties of precipitates showed that N-n-butyl-2-pyrrolidone and N-neopentyl-2-pyrrolidone are the appropriate precipitants for the first and second precipitation steps, respectively. From the engineering investigation, We confirmed that the precipitation and the filtration can be done efficiently using the engineering scale equipment and that the fuel pellets are directly prepared by the calcination of the precipitates. On the basis of these results, we evaluated that the proposed system is expected to be one of candidates of the future reprocessing systems for spent FBR fuels.

AMATERAS; A Cold-neutron disk chopper spectrometer

Nakajima, Kenji; Kawamura, Seiko; Kikuchi, Tatsuya; Nakamura, Mitsutaka; Kajimoto, Ryoichi; Inamura, Yasuhiro; Takahashi, Nobuaki; Aizawa, Kazuya; Suzuya, Kentaro; Shibata, Kaoru; et al.

Journal of the Physical Society of Japan, 80(Suppl.B), p.SB028_1 - SB028_6, 2011/05

https://doi.org/10.1143/JPSJS.80SB.SB028

AMATERAS is a cold-neutron disk-chopper spectrometer in MLF, J-PARC. The construction of main part of the spectrometer has been completed in spring of 2009. Soon after that, we have started the commissioning work on AMATERAS. The performance of AMATERAS has been examined by test experiments in the course of commissioning. In parallel to these works, we have started the user program on AMATERAS from December 2009 and we are getting scientific results from our spectrometer. In this presentation, we will report the current status of AMATERAS including the results of performance tests and some of examples of scientific outputs.

Adsorptivity of polyvinylpolypyrrolidone for selective separation of U(VI) from nitric acid media

Nogami, Masanobu*; Sugiyama, Yuichi*; Kawasaki, Takeshi*; Harada, Masayuki*; Morita, Yasuji; Kikuchi, Toshiaki*; Ikeda, Yasuhisa*

Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, 283(2), p.541 - 546, 2010/02

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-009-0366-2

Adsorptivity of polyvinylpolypyrrolidone (PVPP) to various metal ions was examined as a part of the development of resins with selectivity to U(VI) in nitric acid media. It was found that PVPP has a strong adsorptivity to U(VI) in wide concentration range of nitric acid. The mechanism of U(VI) adsorption by PVPP was discussed by results of Scatchard plot analysis and infrared spectroscopic analysis. Furthermore, it was found that fission productions except for Re(VII) as the simulant of Tc(VII) and Pd(II) are not adsorbed on to PVPP and that Pd(II) and Re(VII) species are weakly adsorbed in the lower concentration ranges of nitric acid, where the adsorption rates of Pd(II) are extremely slower than those of U(VI). These results indicate that U(VI) can be separated from other metal ions by PVPP.

Annual report of Nuclear Emergency Assistance and Training Center (April 1, 2008 - March 31, 2009)

Kanamori, Masashi; Hashimoto, Kazuichiro; Terunuma, Hiroshi; Ikeda, Takeshi; Omura, Akiko; Terakado, Naoya; Nagakura, Tomohiro; Fukumoto, Masahiro; Watanabe, Fumitaka; Yamamoto, Kazuya; et al.

JAEA-Review 2009-023, 61 Pages, 2009/09

JAEA-Review-2009-023.pdf:8.49MB

When a nuclear emergency occurs in Japan, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) provides technical support to the National government, local governments, police, fire station and license holder etc. They are Designated Public Organizations conforming to the Basic Law on Emergency Preparedness and the Basic Plan for Disaster Countermeasures. The Nuclear Emergency Assistance and Training Center (NEAT) of JAEA provides a comprehensive range of technical support activities to an Off-Site Center in case of a nuclear emergency. Specifically, NEAT gives technical advice and information, provides for the dispatch of specialist as required, supplies emergency equipments and materials to the Joint Council of Nuclear Disaster Countermeasures, which meets at the Off-Site Center. NEAT provide various lectures and training course concerning nuclear disaster prevention for those personnel taking an active part in emergency response organizations at normal time. And NEAT researches on nuclear disaster prevention and also cooperate with international organizations. This annual report summarized the activities of JAEA/NEAT in the fiscal year 2008.