Material Validation and Certification

QA / QC for highly specified materials in the nuclear industry, for users and suppliers, including chemical, physical, metallurgical, surface and structural analysis, on a wide range of materials including:

• Glass frit for waste encapsulation
• Cementitious materials for encapsulation
• Simulated waste and leachates
• Large-scale load bearing materials.

Material Performance and Characterization

Physical properties of materials, including synthetic encapsulated waste. To determine thermal and mechanical properties of materials to enable a better understanding of material performance. A wide range of capabilities with applications including:

• Modulus of elasticity, pre and post neutron exposure
• Impact, tensile and crushing strength
• Thermal conductivity and encapsulation.

Evaluation to Support Waste Encapsulation Trials

Robust data to support the studies on the structure and stability of waste encapsulation. Types of data include:

• Bulk chemistry, including trace metals, rare earth elements, and platinoids
• Encapsulated mineralogy – quantification of phases, cell parameters and leachate studies
• Microstructural information including; morphology, grain size, chemistry and elemental distributions
• Production-scale demonstrations.

Waste Stream Separation and Encapsulation Validation

An understanding of the processes in separating and encapsulating a range of waste streams. Services include:

• Developing specific separation and encapsulation technologies
• Plant and process design from concept to operation
• Mass balance of components on separation
• Comprehensive range of analytical capabilities and breadth of skills to maximize the data recovery.