DOE OSTI2018
Environmental management is a key DOE mission, in large part because decades of nuclear weapons production and nuclear energy research have left behind huge quantities of radioactive waste. Most of the radioactivity in the waste, however, comes from the element cesium, which is just a tiny fraction of the total waste. An alert research chemist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Bruce Moyer, recognized that if cesium could be removed, dealing with the wastes would be much easier and safer. Moyer also was aware of a potential solution—fundamental research into organic molecules that can recognize and capture metal atoms like cesium, some of it supported by the Basic Energy Sciences (BES) office of DOE. With BES support, he put together a team that, over a decade, showed the potential of this approach. Subsequent support by DOE’s Environmental Management Office allowed the team to work out the practical details.
12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗