The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and other Department of Energy branches said last week they have made big strides toward recovering rare plutonium-244 from old Cold War-era material at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
A new radiochemical separation capability successfully recovered valuable isotopes from a Mark-18A target at the Savannah River National Laboratory, according to a Dec. 18 press release. It is considered a key milestone in a long-running project between NNSA, the DOE Office of Environmental Management and DOE’s Office of Science.
The Mark-18A targets hold heavy curium and the world’s only supply of unseparated plutonium-244 (Pu-244) according to the release. The rare Pu-244 is useful in nuclear forensics. The heavy curium will later be converted into californium-252, which is a vital start-up source for nuclear reactors, among other uses, according to the release.
“Beyond the intrinsic value of the recovered isotopes, this project signifies the re-establishment of capabilities that have been lost since the Cold War,” Ahmad Al-Daouk, NNSA associate administrator for the Office of Environment, Safety, and Health said in the release.
The longrunning project also supports President Donald Trump’s May 23 order on reinvigorating the nuclear industrial base, DOE said.
According to a 2016 DOE briefing paper, the 18A targets were metal cylinders irradiated at a Savannah River Site reactor in the 1970s. Pu-244 is useful for among other things detecting smuggled nuclear materials. Production capabilities for making new 18A targets were shut down after the Cold War.
During a 2019 ribbon-cutting ceremony for a mock-up facility, the head of Savannah River National Laboratory said there are probably about 20 grams of Pu-244 at Savannah River.
The 18A targets were held for years at the Savannah River Site L Basin, according to a briefing paper from 2019 by contractor Savannah River Nuclear Solutions.