Diamond Light Source, the UK's national synchrotron, currently cannot prepare radioactive samples on site, forcing researchers to ship them elsewhere or skip experiments entirely. This gap blocks experiments that require manipulating radioactive materials at the exact point of measurement—critical for understanding how materials behave under real-world conditions. The project will build an active materials laboratory with a dry lab for solid samples (like steel from nuclear reactors), a wet lab for liquids (like contaminated groundwater), a counting room to measure sample radioactivity, and secure storage. It will also add a specialised cell and oven to test how irradiated materials perform mechanically at high temperatures in controlled atmospheres. If successful, the lab will allow researchers to study how advanced materials degrade after prolonged radiation exposure—directly informing the safety and lifespan of nuclear fission and fusion facilities. It will also reveal how radionuclides behave when locked inside glass waste forms for long-term storage, and how they move through the environment after an accidental release, shaping clean-up strategies. The work is applied, not fundamental: it solves a practical infrastructure bottleneck that currently blocks a wide range of nuclear and environmental research.
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Diamond Light Source is the UK's national light source , currently the capability for preparing all but the most inactive samples on site does not exist, making it hard for Users who wish to do experiments that involve manipulation of samples at the point of measurement to do experiments with radioactive samples at the facility. We will build and equip an active materials laboratory to enable users to manipulate and prepare most active samples to measure on the Diamond synchrotron beamlines. The laboratory will have a dry lab for materials preparation such as engineering materials used in nuclear power stations, a wet lab to handles samples in solution or in contact with solution such as environmental samples. The lab will have a dedicated counting room to check the activity of the samples brought or made on site and also a safe storage room. We will also procure a cell and oven suitable for the loading rig being acquired by I12 to enable active materials mechanical properties to be examined at temperature in particular atmospheres. This cell and oven are necessary to understand the impact of prolonged radiation of the mechanical performance of a range of materials used in nuclear fission and fusion facilities. The laboratory will enable a wide range of experimental research on the synchrotron using active materials including engineering studies of advanced materials after irradiation , understanding the behaviour of radionuclides when encapsulated in materials such as glass for storage as waste. Understanding the way radionuclides behave in the environment to influence clean-up strategy after accidental or deliberate release of radionuclides in the environment.
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