Researchers at Texas A&M University’s Nuclear Security Science and Policy Institute (NSSPI), along with its Department of Nuclear Engineering and a Cyclotron Institute professor, have developed a new method to determine the origins of weapon-usable plutonium, the NSSPI announced last week.
The nuclear forensics methodology helps “track the production source of black market nuclear materials, specifically plutonium” via a radiochemistry process, the organization said. The plutonium uranium redox extraction (PUREX) process separates plutonium from trace elements made by spent nuclear fuel. These trace contaminants “are isotopes that are identifiable to investigators as indicative of specific reactor types,” the NSSPI said. Once the specific type of reactor is identified, “it becomes a game of elimination between the different countries where these reactor types operate,” it said. The government can then examine the materials’ potential countries of origin and means of transportation.
The six-year project, funded by the Department of Homeland Security’s Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, is in its fourth year, the NSSPI said. The research team hopes to receive two more years of funding, it added, “to look at different plutonium separation processes apart from the PUREX method and to further diversify the method to identify more reactor types across the spectrum.”
