Dounreay funds PhD for research on radioactive particles
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Dounreay is funding research through the University of the Highlands and Islands for a PhD project to model the behaviour of radioactive particles in the marine environment.
An important part of the work to close down the site is to address the legacy of the radioactive particles that wash up on nearby beaches.
Nuclear fuel was reprocessed at Dounreay for almost 40 years. The used fuel rods were dismantled in water-filled ponds in a process that generated metallic fragments, some of which entered the site’s drainage system and were discharged to the sea in the 1960s and ’70s.
Dr Iain Darby has been working with Dr Jason McIlvenny, of Thurso's Environmental Research Institute, to offer a full PhD bursary in this subject.
He said: “Over the years we have been involved in a great deal of research into the way that the particles behave, and we are able to make predictions about the numbers of particles in the marine environment and where we expect them to be found.
"However, this is an extremely important area of research for the site and for our ongoing management of this issue.”
Dr McIlvenny said: “The PhD bursary offers an exciting opportunity to collaborate with Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd [DSRL] to explore a difficult environmental problem.
"The project will involve working with state-of-the-art equipment to understand historical movements of the legacy particles and understand the environmental conditions that potentially lead to the mobilisation of radioactive particles in the marine environment.”
The successful applicant will be based at North Highland College UHI's Environmental Research Institute, part of the University of the Highlands and Islands, and will have regular site visits to Dounreay.
Dounreay is also supporting the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) PhD bursary on muon imaging at the University of Glasgow, the NDA PhD bursary on Eversion and Growing Robots: Pipe Navigation, Inspection and Characterisation at the Queen Mary University of London, and a PhD via Gamechangers into thermal ablation of concrete as a promising decontamination technique. The research for all these PhDs will be trialled at Dounreay in nuclear decommissioning projects.
More information is available from Dr Iain Darby through communications@dounreay.com
