Nuclear Chemical Engineering

Abstract

Chemical engineers comprise a significant segment within the U.S. nuclear industry, yet few study nuclear subjects before they begin their careers. Nuclear chemical engineering is defined, then, as an arena for action rather than a field of knowledge. Of the classical problem areas in nuclear chemical engineering, fuel fabrication and isotope separation have made the best recent progress. Radiation chemical engineering, once an activity of ebullient promise, is nearly moribund. Only rarely do chemical engineers approach the central locus of reactor design; when they do the results are often ambivalent or worse. Surprisingly, perhaps, chemical engineering has made several important contributions to elementary particle physics.

Fusion technology presents many challenges for creative chemical engineering, e.g., in fuel recovery, gaseous permeation, and the materials effects that result from ionic bombardment.