Center for Sustainable Energy at Notre Dame
Safer Nuclear
Nuclear power currently supplies 20% of U.S. electricity and is an attractive component of a sustainable energy future. The safety issues associated with unused nuclear materials remain a challenging problem. Actinides are radioactive elements (including thorium, uranium and plutonium) that are the fuels of nuclear energy. They are abundant in used nuclear materials and are very problematic in terms of the safe disposal of nuclear waste.
Notre Dame has world-recognized expertise in synthesizing and characterizing actinide materials, and the recent award of an Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC) at Notre Dame, titled Materials Science of Actinides, has reinforced this leadership position. The EFRC at Notre Dame is engaged in a spectrum of research efforts that are intended to provide the foundation of knowledge that is essential to developing a green nuclear fuel cycle that provides an abundance of energy for many generations.
The research emphasis for the SEI Safer Nuclear thrust area will be on the creation of novel actinide materials, often at the nano-scale, that have the potential to greatly impact recycling of uranium-based nuclear fuels and the creation of robust waste forms for permanent disposition of unusable radioactive material.
