Redox control in arsenic accumulation with organic matter derived from a varved lacustrine deposit in the Jurassic accretionary complexes

Masuki, Yuma*; Katsuta, Nagayoshi*; Naito, Sayuri*; Murakami, Takuma*; Umemura, Ayako*; Fujita, Natsuko; Matsubara, Akihiro*; Minami, Masayo*; Niwa, Masakazu; Yoshida, Hidekazu*; et al.

Journal of Hazardous Materials, 485, p.136843_1 - 136843_10, 2025/03

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2024.136843

Lacustrine deposits have 30-fold higher As abundance than the average crustal deposit. Arsenic is mostly concentrated as discrete horizons deposited in spring and autumn. As-rich layers contain FeAsS, AsS, and AsS but As-rich hotspots mostly contain FeAsS. As accumulation to sediment is controlled by redox potential with organic matter.

R&D status of digital technology on inverse estimation of radioactive source distributions and related source countermeasures; Fast Digital Twin Tech. in Decommissioning Field: 3D-ADRES-Indoor FrontEnd

Machida, Masahiko; Yamada, Susumu; Kim, M.; Tanaka, Satoshi*; Tobita, Yasuhiro*; Iwata, Ayako*; Aoki, Yuto; Aoki, Kazuhisa; Yanagisawa, Kenichi*; Yamaguchi, Takashi; et al.

RIST News, (70), p.3 - 22, 2024/09

Inside the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (1F), there are many locations with high radiation levels due to contamination by radioactive materials that leaked from the reactor. These pose a significant obstacle to the smooth progress of decommissioning work. To help solve this issue, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA), under a subsidy from the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry's decommissioning and contaminated water management project, is conducting research and development on digital technologies to improve the radiation environment inside the decommissioning site. This project, titled "Development of Technology to Improve the Environment Inside Reactor Buildings (Enhancing Digital Technology for Environment and Source Distribution to Reduce Radiation Exposure)," began in April of FY 2023. In this project, the aim is to develop three interconnected systems: FrontEnd, Pro, and BackEnd. The FrontEnd system, based on the previously developed 3D-ADRES-Indoor (prototype) from FY 2021-2022, will be upgraded to a high-speed digital twin technology usable on-site. The Pro system will carry out detailed analysis in rooms such as the new office building at 1F, while the BackEnd system will serve as a database to centrally manage the collected and analyzed data. This report focuses on the FrontEnd system, which will be used on-site. After point cloud measurement, the system will quickly create a 3D mesh model, estimate the radiation source from dose rate measurements, and refine the position and intensity of the estimated source using recalculation techniques (re-observation instructions and re-estimation). The results of verification tests conducted on Unit 5 are also presented. Furthermore, the report briefly discusses the future research and development plans for this project.

Utilization of gamma ray irradiation at the WASTEF Facility

Sano, Naruto; Yamashita, Naoki; Watanabe, Masaya; Tsukada, Manabu*; Hoshino, Kazutoyo*; Hirai, Koki; Ikegami, Yuta*; Tashiro, Shinsuke; Yoshida, Ryoichiro; Hatakeyama, Yuichi; et al.

JAEA-Technology 2023-029, 36 Pages, 2024/03

JAEA-Technology-2023-029.pdf:2.47MB

At the Waste Safety Testing Facility (WASTEF), the gamma ray irradiation device "Gamma Cell 220" was relocated from the 4th Research Building of the Nuclear Science Research Institute in FY2019, and the use of gamma ray irradiation has begun. Initially, Fuel Cycle Safety Research Group, Fuel Cycle Safety Research Division, Nuclear Safety Research Center, Sector of Nuclear Safety Research and Emergency Preparedness, the owner of this device, conducted the tests as the main user, but since 2022, other users, including those outside the organization, have started using it. The gamma ray irradiation device "Gamma Cell 220" is manufactured by Nordion International Inc. in Canada. Since it was purchased in 1989, the built-in Co radiation source has been updated once, and safety research related to nuclear fuel cycles, etc. It is still used for this purpose to this day. This report summarizes the equipment overview of the gamma ray irradiation device "Gamma Cell 220", its permits and licenses at WASTEF, usage status, maintenance and inspection, and future prospects.

An X-ray and neutron scattering study of aqueous MgCl solution in the gigapascal pressure range

Yamaguchi, Toshio*; Fukuyama, Nami*; Yoshida, Koji*; Katayama, Yoshinori*; Machida, Shinichi*; Hattori, Takanori

Liquids (Internet), 3(3), p.288 - 302, 2023/09

https://doi.org/10.3390/liquids3030019

We report the structure of an aqueous 2 mol/kg MgCl solution at pressures from 0.1 MPa to 4 GPa and temperatures from 300 to 500 K revealed by X-ray and neutron scattering measurements. The scattering data are analyzed by empirical potential structure refinement (EPSR) modeling to derive the pair distribution functions, coordination number distributions, angle distributions, and spatial density functions as a function of pressure and temperature. Mg forms rigid solvation shells extended to the third shell; the first solvation shell of six-fold octahedral coordination with about six water molecules at 0 GPa transforms into about five water molecules and one Cl due to the formation of the contact ion pairs in the GPa pressure range. The Cl solvation shows a substantial pressure dependence; the coordination number of a water oxygen atom around Cl increases from 8 at 0.1 MPa/300 K to 10 at 4 GPa/500 K. The solvent water transforms the tetrahedral network structure at 0.1 MPa/300 K to a densely packed structure in the GPa pressure range; the number of water oxygen atoms around a central water molecule gradually increases from 4.6 at 0.1 MPa/298 K to 8.4 at 4 GPa/500 K.

Inverse estimation scheme of radioactive source distributions inside building rooms based on monitoring air dose rates using LASSO; Theory and demonstration

Shi, W.*; Machida, Masahiko; Yamada, Susumu; Yoshida, Toru*; Hasegawa, Yukihiro*; Okamoto, Koji*

Progress in Nuclear Energy, 162, p.104792_1 - 104792_19, 2023/08

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pnucene.2023.104792

Predicting radioactive source distributions inside reactor building rooms based on monitoring air dose rates is one of the most essential steps towards decommissioning of nuclear power plants. However, the attempt is rather a difficult task, because it can be generally mapped onto mathematically ill-posed problem. Then, in order to successfully perform the inverse estimations on radioactive source distributions even in such ill-posed conditions, we suggest that a machine learning method, least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) minimizing the loss function, is a promising scheme. For the purpose of its feasibility demonstrations in real building rooms, we employ PHITS code to make LASSO input as the above matrix C connecting the radioactive source vector P defined on surface meshes of structural materials with the air dose rate vector Q measured at internal positions inside the rooms. We develop a mathematical criterion on the number of monitoring points to correctly predict source distributions based on the theory of Candes and Tao. Then, we confirm that LASSO actually shows extremely high possibility for source distribution reconstructions as far as the number of detection points satisfies our criterion. Moreover, we verify that radioactive hot spots can be truly reconstructed in an experiment setup. At last, we examine an influence factor like detector-source distance to enhance the predicting possibility in the inverse estimation. From the above demonstrations, we propose that LASSO scheme is a quite useful way to explore hot spots as seen in damaged nuclear power plants like Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plants.

Research on improvement of HTGR core power-density, 4; Feasibility study for a reactor core

Okita, Shoichiro; Mizuta, Naoki; Takamatsu, Kuniyoshi; Goto, Minoru; Yoshida, Katsumi*; Nishimura, Yosuke*; Okamoto, Koji*

Proceedings of 30th International Conference on Nuclear Engineering (ICONE30) (Internet), 10 Pages, 2023/05

LASSO reconstruction scheme to predict radioactive source distributions inside reactor building rooms; Theory & demonstration

Shi, W.*; Machida, Masahiko; Yamada, Susumu; Yoshida, Toru*; Hasegawa, Yukihiro*; Okamoto, Koji*

Proceedings of Waste Management Symposia 2023 (WM2023) (Internet), 8 Pages, 2023/02

Neutron scattering on an aqueous sodium chloride solution in the gigapascal pressure range

Yamaguchi, Toshio*; Yoshida, Koji*; Machida, Shinichi*; Hattori, Takanori

Journal of Molecular Liquids, 365, p.120181_1 - 120181_10, 2022/11

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molliq.2022.120181

Neutron scattering measurements were performed on an aqueous 3 mol/kg NaCl solution in DO at temperature and pressure conditions of 0.1 MPa/298K, 1 GPa/298K, 1 GPa/523K, and 4 GPa/523K. The empirical potential structure refinement method was applied to the obtained data to extract the pair correlation function, coordination number distribution, angular distribution (orientation correlation), and spatial density function (3-D structure). From those results, pressure and temperature dependence of solvation and association of ions and solvent-water structure were discussed.

Clogging properties of HEPA filter induced by loading of soot from burned glove-box panel materials

Tashiro, Shinsuke; Ono, Takuya; Amano, Yuki; Yoshida, Ryoichiro; Watanabe, Koji*; Abe, Hitoshi

Nuclear Technology, 208(10), p.1553 - 1561, 2022/10

https://doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2022.2045179

To contribute to the confinement safety evaluation of the radioactive materials in the Glove box (GB) fire accident, combustion tests with the Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) and the Polycarbonate (PC) as typical panel materials for the GB have been conducted with a relatively large scale apparatus. As the important data for evaluating confinement safety, the release ratio and the particle size distribution of the soot generated from the burned materials were obtained. Furthermore, the rise of the differential pressure (P) of the high efficiency particle air (HEPA) filter by the soot loading was also investigated. As results, the release ratio of the soot from the PC was about seven times as large as the PMMA. In addition, it was found that the behavior of the rise of the P with soot loading could be represented uniformly regardless of kinds of combustion materials by considering effect of the loading volume of the soot particle in the relatively low loading region.

TEM observation and MD simulation of frank partial dislocation climbing in Al-Cu alloy

Chen, J.*; Yoshida, Kenta*; Suzudo, Tomoaki; Shimada, Yusuke*; Inoue, Koji*; Konno, Toyohiko*; Nagai, Yasuyoshi*

Materials Transactions, 63(4), p.468 - 474, 2022/04

https://doi.org/10.2320/matertrans.MT-M2021233

In situ electron irradiation using high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) was performed to visualize the Frank loop evolution in aluminium-copper (Al-Cu) alloy with an atomic-scale spatial resolution of 0.12 nm. The HRTEM observation along the [110] direction of the FCC-Al lattice, Frank partial dislocation bounding an intrinsic stacking fault exhibited an asymmetrical climb along the 112 direction opposed to those in the reference pure Al under an electron irradiation, with a corresponding displacement-per-atom rate of 0.055-0.120 dpa/s. The asymmetrical climb of the partial dislocation was described as pinning effects due to Cu-Cu bonding in Guinier-Preston zones by a molecular dynamics simulation.