💡 Three nuclear energy innovation news this week!
🤖 A remotely-operated rescue robot capable of withstanding hazardous environments has been evaluated at the Sellafield Ltd nuclear site (UK). The robot is designed and manufactured by Forth Engineering (Cumbria) Ltd on a 1.6 tons JCB compactor excavator platform. It has the potential to make emergency jobs on nuclear plants both safer and more cost effective.
🏥 Brookhaven National Laboratory (US) ships the first actinium-225 to be produced in a newly refurbished hot cell laboratory. This isotope is an extremely rare alpha-emitting radioisotope, used in targeted alpha therapy in medical applications. This type of refurbishment paves the way to scale the production process and streamline the production and distribution of Ac-225.
👩🎓 Ultra Safe Nuclear (US), Hyundai Engineering Co. Ltd. and SK E&C (South Korea) sign a memorandum of understanding to conduct joint research and development on Hydrogen Micro Hubs. These hubs will produce hydrogen through high-temperature electrolysis fed by the electricity and high-temperature steam generated by USNC's Micro-Modular Reactor (MMR).
🎓 Paper of the week: "New Direct Limit on Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay Half-Life of Te-128 with CUORE", Physical Review Letters (2023). https://tinyurl.com/449zw5wh