Given strong domestic commercial demand for americium-241, Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) at the request of the U.S. Department of Energy - Office of Science has re-constituted the capability for providing high-purity americium-241 oxide in gram quantities. Providing a domestic source of this nuclear material eliminates the need for domestic users to procure it from foreign sources. The source of americium-241 available to LANL results from the decay of plutonium-241 (14.33 year half-life), a small abundance component in all grades of plutonium. By recovering this in-growing impurity and purifying it up to customer required specifications, we can divert this TRU waste component from current long term disposition at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), reduce potential worker external dose from current on-site inventory, and satisfy a domestic commercial need for this nuclear material. In implementing the methodologies necessary for insuring that the produced americium-241 oxide meets customer specifications we evaluated the application of a non-destructive analysis (NDA) methodology, i.e. gamma-ray spectrometry. Gamma-ray spectrometry can provide timely and cost-effective results to the LANL production capability but also be mindful of managing the external dose to our analytical personnel, i.e. applying the principle of As Low As Reasonably Achievable (ALARA). Some specific radionuclide impurities in americium-241 we evaluated the application of gamma-ray spectrometry to were americium-243, neptunium-237, and plutonium-239. This presentation will address the factors that influenced our success or not in meeting the needed impurity specification for these radionuclides.

Making americium-241 great again

256th National Meeting (2018)

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