(309d) Processing of Actinide Materials for Reuse/Disposal

The US Department of Energy (DOE) manages materials that contain a range of actinide isotopes that were produced from the 1960s through the 1980s by irradiating targets in production reactors to produce heavy isotopes and enriching them for DOE programmatic use, scientific research, and industrial and medical applications. Because the production reactors and enrichment facilities have been shut down, many of these unique materials will never be produced again. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) enriched many of the materials and has since used them in DOE’s center for production, storage, and distribution of heavy isotopes (uranium through californium) for the heavy-element research program. As a result, ORNL has accumulated an inventory of rare actinide isotopes that are being held for reuse because they have potential intrinsic value to DOE, even though the materials have no currently defined use. Steps are being taken to evaluate the inventory, recover the useful materials, and distribute them to programmatic users. If no programmatic need for the materials is found, the materials are processed for transuranic waste disposal. This paper describes the processes that are being used to recover or disposition the materials.