As global interest in nuclear energy increases, so does the potential for nuclear proliferation. The development of low-cost technologies for on-site analysis of uranium enrichment will address the need for more efficient enrichment verification methods. With fully-automated, near real-time detection capabilities, regulatory agencies could minimize time and costs for facility inspections and identify undeclared nuclear activity more quickly. In collaboration with Argonne National Laboratory, we aim to create a coating that will be applied to the surface of a PIPS (passivated implanted planar silicon) alpha-particle detector. This coating will act as a protective barrier between the detector surface and uranium hexafluoride (UF6) gas. The coating method currently under investigation involves physical vapor deposition of a thin layer of gold, followed by the application of self-assembled monolayers (SAMs). The choice of SAM head group will be based on its characteristic affinity for UF6. Relative intermolecular potential energies (PEs) between UF6 and a test set of fifty-five organic functional groups (FGs) were obtained using <i>ab initio </i>quantum chemical methods with correlation-consistent basis sets. Overall, nitrogen-containing FGs, like ethylamine, led to the largest relative PEs, while halogen-containing FGs resulted in the smallest. With the right choice of functional group, any permanent deposition of UF6 on the detector surface would be prevented, resulting in a detector that could be used repeatedly or continuously with no sample preparation required.

Uranium enrichment verification: Toward on-site, near real-time UF6 detection

Macromolecular Chemistry: The Second Century

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ACS Spring 2020 National Meeting & Expo

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.