The R- and P-reactor vessels at the Savannah River Site (SRS) are being prepared for deactivation and decommissioning (D&D). D&D activities will consist primarily of physically isolating and stabilizing the reactor vessel by filling it with a grout material. The reactor vessels contain aluminum alloy materials, which pose a concern in that aluminum corrodes rapidly when it comes in contact with the alkaline grout. A product of the corrosion reaction is hydrogen gas and therefore potential flammability issues were assessed. A model was developed to calculate the hydrogen generation rate as the reactor is being filled with the grout material. Three options existed for the type of grout material for D&D of the reactor vessels. The grout formulation options included ceramicrete (pH 6-8), a calcium aluminate sulfate (CAS) based cement (pH 10), or Portland cement grout (pH 12.4). Corrosion data for aluminum in concrete were utilized as input for the model. The calculations considered such factors as the surface area of the aluminum components, the open cross-sectional area of the reactor vessel, the rate at which the grout is added to the reactor vessel, and temperature. Given the hydrogen generation rate, the hydrogen concentration in the vapor space of the …

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Environmental health focus with training conducted as part of the United Negro College Fund Special Programs Corporation/National Library of Medicine HBCU ACCESS Project at Winston-Salem State University, NC on November 10, 2010.

This report summarizes field sampling activities conducted in support of WCH’s Remedial Investigation of Hanford Site Releases to the Columbia River. This work was conducted form 2008 through 2010. The work included preliminary mapping and measurement of Hanford Site contaminants in sediment, pore water, and surface water located in areas where groundwater upwelling were found.

Unlike the ferropnictide superconductors, which crystallize in a tetragonal crystal structure, binary FeAs forms in an orthorhombic crystal structure, where the local atomic environment resembles a highly distorted variant of the FeAs{sub 4} tetrahedral building block of the ferropnictide superconductors. However, like the parent compounds of the ferropnictide superconductors, FeAs undergoes magnetic ordering at low temperatures, with no evidence favoring a superconducting ground state at ambient pressure. We employ pressure-dependent electrical transport and x-ray diffraction measurements using diamond anvil cells to characterize the magnetic state and the structure as a function of pressure. While the structure persists up to 25 GPa, compressing continuously with pressure, magnetotransport measurements suggests that the magnetic state is destroyed near 11 GPa. The magnetic transition temperature is found to be remarkably robust under pressure, and transport measurements suggest that a dynamical structural instability coupled to the Fermi surface via a strong electron-phonon interaction may play an important role in enabling magnetism in FeAs.

Prokaryotic life on earth is manifested by its diversity and omnipresence. These microbes serve as natural sources of a large variety of compounds with the potential to serve the ever growing, medicinal, chemical and transportation needs of the human population. However, commercially viable production of these compounds can be realized only through significant improvement of the native production capacity of natural isolates. The most favorable way to achieve this goal is through the genetic manipulation of metabolic pathways that direct the production of these molecules. While random mutagenesis and screening have dominated the industrial production of such compounds in the past our increased understanding of microbial physiology over the last five decades has shifted this trend towards rational approaches for metabolic design. Major drivers of this trend include recombinant DNA technology, high throughput characterization of macromolecular cellular components, quantitative modeling for metabolic engine ring, targeted combinatorial engineering and synthetic biology. In this chapter we track the evolution of microbial engineering technologies from the black box era of random mutagenesis to the science and engineering-driven era of metabolic design.

Customized spatial light modulators have been designed and fabricated for use as precision beam shaping devices in fusion class laser systems. By inserting this device in a low-fluence relay plane upstream of the amplifier chain, 'blocker' obscurations can be programmed into the beam profile to shadow small isolated flaws on downstream optical components that might otherwise limit the system operating energy. In this two stage system, 1920 x 1080 bitmap images are first imprinted on incoherent, 470 nm address beams via pixilated liquid crystal on silicon (LCoS) modulators. To realize defined masking functions with smooth apodized shapes and no pixelization artifacts, address beam images are projected onto custom fabricated optically-addressable light valves. Each valve consists of a large, single pixel liquid cell in series with a photoconductive Bismuth silicon Oxide (BSO) crystal. The BSO crystal enables bright and dark regions of the address image to locally control the voltage supplied to the liquid crystal layer which in turn modulates the amplitude of the coherent beams at 1053 nm. Valves as large as 24 mm x 36 mm have been fabricated with low wavefront distortion (<0.5 waves) and antireflection coatings for high transmission (>90%) and etalon suppression to avoid spectral and …