The UK needs to train at least 1,000 nuclear specialists every year to handle radioactive materials safely—but the country currently faces an acute shortage of qualified graduates. This Doctoral Training Centre tackles that gap by training researchers in the physics, chemistry, and materials science of nuclear fission. The UK is simultaneously building new power stations, maintaining an independent nuclear deterrent, and embarking on a decades-long, £70 billion programme to clean up legacy nuclear waste. All of these activities require experts who understand how radioactive elements behave in reactors, in storage, and in the environment. The centre focuses on three core challenges: how nuclear materials like uranium and plutonium perform over time; how to convert diverse radioactive wastes into stable, safe wasteforms; and how radionuclides move through the environment after disposal. A fourth cross-cutting theme—radiation effects—ties these together by examining how irradiation alters materials and affects human health. If successful, this programme will produce the skilled workforce needed to keep the UK’s energy grid running, maintain its defence capabilities, and safely manage nuclear waste for decades to come.
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Nuclear fission technology is an essential component of both UK energy resources and defence strategy. The UK Government has recently signalled its support both for a new generation of nuclear power stations and a continuing independent UK nuclear deterrent and, at the same time, we have started a decades-long, > 70 bn programme to clean up the UK's legacy nuclear wastes. All of these activities involve hazardous radioactive materials, so it is clear that the UK will need expertise in the physics, chemistry, materials science and environmental behaviour of radionuclides for many years to come. At the same time, there is an acute skills shortage, with demand for graduate recruits between 2002 and 2017 estimated at 1000 per year. This expertise will be needed if we are to process and separate radionuclides, fabricate them into materials, understand the in-service performance of such materials, treat wastes from processing, remediate contaminated sites and predict the environmental mobility of radionuclides in nuclear waste disposal. This Doctoral Training Centre will address three key scientific challenges:1. Strategic Nuclear Materials- behaviour of nuclear materials, principally uranium and plutonium in service, in storage and in the disposal environment;2. Radioactive Wastes - properties of the diverse range of wastes which exists, and technologies for their conversion into safe wasteforms; 3. Radionuclides in the Environment- conversion of radioactive wastes into stable wasteforms, behaviour in the repository environment, rates and forms of release, environmental transport and radiological impact. In addition, we identify a cross-cutting topic, which fundamentally influences all three themes:4. Radiation Effects- modification of behaviour and properties as result if irradiation, ranging from changes in physical properties to chemical effects, and stochastic and non-stochastic biological effects of importance in human exposure.To address these scientific challenges, we will develop underpinning skills in two key areas:5. Radioelement Chemistry. Characteristics of key radioelements; definition of physico-chemical form (speciation) in the solid state and in aqueous and non-aqueous solution; thermodynamics; kinetics; spectroscopy; characterisation of complexes; redox chemistry; hydrolysis 6. Materials Science. Behaviour of materials relevant to nuclear science including metallics, ceramics (including glasses) and polymers; radionuclide contamination (and decontamination) of materials surfaces; measurement and modelling of materials degradation of advanced fuels, moderators and wasteforms.
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