Touching URANIUM and EXPOSING Myths - A day in the Life of a Nuclear Physicist
Touching URANIUM and EXPOSING Myths - A day in the Life of a Nuclear Physicist
Touching URANIUM and EXPOSING Myths - A day in the Life of a Nuclear Physicist
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In this video, Touching URANIUM and EXPOSING Myths - A day in the Life of a Nuclear Physicist I share a day in the life of a nuclear physicist and describe the work I do at a nuclear lab,. I explain various types of uranium and give a tour of the nuclear lab. If you’re interested in learning more about nuclear physics, then this video Touching URANIUM and EXPOSING Myths - A day in the Life of a Nuclear Physicist is for you! I explain everything you need to know about uranium, nuclear energy, and the equipment I use in the nuclear lab. This video Touching URANIUM and EXPOSING Myths - A day in the Life of a Nuclear Physicist is a great way to learn about this fascinating field!
Content
55.5 -> Hey there it's Elina your friendly nuclear physicist and today we
are at the nuclear fuel lab so there is several
63.42 -> people different works and projects done in
this lab but we're going to talk a little bit
67.56 -> more about what I'm doing so of course since it
is a nuclear fuel up we start with uranium right
73.68 -> so I'm going to show you a little bit how natural
uranium metal looks like so this is basically a
79.62 -> container a Plexiglas container that has several
pieces of natural uranium that we're going to see
84.3 -> up close in a while the reason why I'm holding it
like this and I'm not really afraid of it is first
88.86 -> of all because as I said it is natural uranium
meaning that its radioactivity is quite low
94.26 -> similar to the background radiation and second
of all as we know or don't know and can learn
100.08 -> right now is that natural uranium is primarily an
alpha meter which means that its radiation comes
106.74 -> primarily from alpha particles and as we know they
are heavy particles and they are mostly stopped
112.74 -> at a few millimeters let's say distance so even
the aluminum foil or the paper would stop them
120.78 -> the beta radiation will would mostly be stopped
from the thick Plexiglas that contains the pieces
126.3 -> inside and then what is left is a small amount
of camera radiation which is of course traveling
131.52 -> inside the environment but as I said already this
is a natural element and it is as it exists in
138.54 -> nature hence the level of radioactivity that it
has it's quite low so with proper handling there
144.12 -> is no fears to treat such materials as long as you
know what you're doing so we can now see up close
152.52 -> how natural uranium metal looks like you can
trust me when I say it doesn't really look
158.88 -> any different from any other dirty metal in a
sense but it's uranium so it's more interesting
178.26 -> here it is this is basically metal so it would
be how we take it basically from the ground after
185.64 -> being cleaned and with the excess elements that
were attached to it being removed it is still
190.14 -> quite dirty when we use it we usually clean
it with nitric acid ethanol and acetone and
196.5 -> then it looks pretty shiny I can put a picture of
there so you can see how it looks after cleaning
201.3 -> uh but yeah right you would never know that
this is uranium let's find out if it actually is
209.64 -> so probably our favorite equipment in the
lab is the geiger counter so pretty typical
219.06 -> low levels when I'm not aiming it at anything now
252.66 -> so it's around [Music] 500 micro City per hour
which of course is much higher than the background
261.12 -> radiation but as I said still not within any
extremely high uh level that would need any
270.84 -> specific handling of the fuel like for example
we do with a span nuclear fuel so let me know if
278.04 -> that's how you expect the uranium to look like so
when you're working with uranium bearing samples
283.56 -> even if it is for demonstration purposes or you
actually have some work to do with them you always
288.48 -> want to mark your area in case of a spillage or
some sort of let's say contamination something
294 -> falls out so you always want to put something
down in case something spills you know that it is
299.1 -> in your paper or it is in the territory that you
have marked that you are working on and you don't
303.48 -> need to let's say decontaminate the whole table or
something like that so I find it interesting how
308.22 -> uranium can exist in different forms and that's
why I wanted to show you a couple more so we all
312.84 -> know probably the yellow cake which I'm going
to put a picture up here which is uh basically
317.58 -> uranium dioxide in the fabrication process before
it becomes a pellet for the typical light water
323.4 -> reactors we don't have such in the lab however
we have all kinds of different other uranium
328.68 -> containing let's say powders and pellets because
other people are working on several projects as
334.02 -> I said this is uranium tetrafluoride and I don't
work with this element it's just it interesting
341.28 -> how the color looks like right it's a powder
and getting back to our topic of pellets these
348.6 -> are typical uranium dioxide pellets in size
and shape that you would find in light water
354.12 -> reactors around the wall what is interesting
and might not be common knowledge about the
358.92 -> fuel pellets is that while there being let's say
what they're fissioning inside the Reactor Core
364.5 -> they're actually expanding so the tendency of the
pellets to expand is pretty much from the top and
371.52 -> the bottom and they become like a like a barrel so
for that reason when they are being manufactured
376.32 -> they are being chunked as it's called from the top
so basically a dish size let's say and shape of
385.8 -> the pellet is being cut off so the initial palette
looks with a little bit of a dent from the top and
390.48 -> the bottom and this is done on purpose because
as I explained when it's going to go inside the
395.82 -> reactor and it's going to be let's say visioning
and creating all of decision products it's going
402.06 -> to expand and the idea is that eventually it will
reach a perfect cylinder size and not go over that
407.52 -> in order to touch the pellets above and create
some strain or mechanical let's say stress on the
415.14 -> pellet and the cladding itself the manufacturer
of this pellets in Europe is Westinghouse and
420.54 -> actually Westinghouse is a manufacturer in the US
as well there is a U.S company Westinghouse and a
427.14 -> same let's say daughter company in Europe which
provides all the fuel for the European reactors
432.42 -> some Asian reactors and some reactors in the US
as well therefore they are pretty therefore they
440.46 -> are pretty standardized in size and shape to match
the reactors that they're manufactured for and as
446.4 -> I said this is pretty much a realistic pellet that
it's actually inside a reactor so you can imagine
452.7 -> that there's several pellets in a row and their
whole covered in a cladding tube so the cladding
459.06 -> tubes are pretty narrow and pretty small in size
and then a lot of cladding tubes together with
465 -> pellets inside for what we call a fuel assembly
which usually looks either round or uh square and
471 -> the fuel assemblies are the ones that are placed
around the Reactor Core we are going to see an
474.78 -> Innovative fuel which is uranium nitrite Fuel and
this is the one that I'm working with so what we
481.68 -> see here is a Glam box so what it is basically a
box like a big container that inside of it has an
489.12 -> atmosphere that is different from oxygen that's
why we're using it if we let's say it didn't have
494.64 -> a need to have a different atmosphere there will
be no need for these kind of expensive equipment
500.1 -> so inside the glove box one can feel any gas that
is necessary for one's work in our case we want an
507.42 -> inner gas a gas that doesn't interfere with any of
our samples and doesn't interact with them in any
513.24 -> way Like Oxygen does which oxidizes the samples
and that's why our glove box is filled with Argon
521.52 -> so here we can uh let's say save our pellets
or our powders or any other material that
528.66 -> is prone to oxidation and we can take it
out in case we need to do some testing or
533.28 -> characterization on it however it's resting
place and its House is inside the Glam box
538.92 -> moving on to take something out it passes
through this tube which needs to be flashed
544.8 -> on the outside meaning that the oxygen needs
to be sucked out of it and alcohol needs to
549.54 -> be introduced to it and that's done several
times to ensure that the tube is quite clean
554.58 -> then we can open it on the inside transfer
our samples or anything we need to transfer
561.6 -> to the outside world checking out the gloves again
because as you saw me using the fabric gloves
569.7 -> to work in the glove box and there are several
reasons for that first of all the fabric gloves
576 -> are softer so they are not going to rupture the
gloves or create let's say any sort of like very
583.14 -> harsh tension to them like your maybe bare hands
or Nails would and secondly when you walk for a
589.32 -> long time in the glove box it can get pretty
sweaty it didn't get pretty warm inside this
596.7 -> glove so when you try to push rubber gloves
inside rubber gloves is actually very counter
601.68 -> productive and it doesn't really work that well
whereas the fabric will absorb the moisture
605.46 -> of your hands and will let's say eliminate this
problem and if you're wondering yes everyone has
612 -> their own fabric gloves we don't really use them
around even though we can it's not a big problem
619.56 -> so what I wanted to take outside of the glove
box is a uranium nitrite palette we already saw
624.96 -> uranium dioxide pellets which are sitting outside
uh in the let's say lab room and the reason for
631.62 -> that is because they don't really have a big
problem of oxidizing since oxygen is already
636.9 -> part of the pen however uranium nitride both
powders and peanuts are pretty prone to oxidation
644.04 -> since uranium would like their oxygen
much more than it would like the nitrogen
650.04 -> so here we see a typical size of a uranium nitrite
palette which is the fuel that I work with and the
659.16 -> fuel that I manufacture here in the lab starting
from the uni nitrite powder I can talk about the
663.9 -> fabrication of the fuel itself in a next video If
that is of interest to you you can leave a comment
668.52 -> down below however the two differences that we see
with the pellet is first of all in terms of color
675.96 -> it doesn't really look that much different from
the uranium dioxide that we saw before and that
680.4 -> is true second of all it's much smaller so it's
it is still a cylinder but it's maybe one third
686.1 -> of the size of the previous one there is not
really a scientific reason for that it's a more
691.26 -> reason of let's say preserving resources and this
is because as I said we manufacture our own powder
697.68 -> in the lab and for testing and characterization
purposes so we don't really need a very big pellet
702.96 -> so it would be pretty much a waste of powder and
a waste of uranium to just make very big palettes
708.12 -> to do a small testing or a characterization that
requires millimeters or even micrometers of area
713.58 -> on the sample therefore very small samples that
we can still characterize and treat are better
720.36 -> in order to save up more powder for the future
and you might see a difference here which you
726.18 -> didn't see in the previous pilot is the fact
that the surface of this palette is very shiny
732.6 -> and this is actually what a surface looks like
when we would like to characterize the palette
737.82 -> so characterization means that we can see the
microstructure of the palette we can see the
742.62 -> different elements the different phases that
exist inside the palette in order to do that
747 -> we use different devices so one of the equipment
that we use would be microscopes different kinds
751.98 -> of microscopes from Optical microscopy to
electron microscopy and go to different let's
756.42 -> say resolutions the the better the resolution you
want the better need to your sample to be prepared
762.72 -> in order for you to see these good resolutions so
this is what we call polishing of the sample and
768.54 -> it needs to be mirror shine in order for you
to be able to see good quality imaging under
773.94 -> the microscope so now that we are done with the
pellet we are going to pass it again in the glove
778.14 -> box since the pellet itself will also be prone
to oxidation and the molded seats outside it
785.52 -> will actually form an oxide layer on it which will
then again needs to be ground off and Polished in
791.82 -> order for the pellet to be let's say used for
another testing or characterization technique
799.14 -> so now since the small tube has been opened on
the outside it is filled with oxygen and in order
805.02 -> to open it on the inside one would need to flush
again to make sure that this tube is filled with
810.3 -> argon before opening it of the inside in order to
not contaminate the environment of the Glam box
817.32 -> and as with anything in science statistics is
important so we don't just flush the tip one
823.68 -> time we flash it three times or sometimes even up
to six times if it's necessary to ensure that all
831.06 -> the oxygen from the tube has been taken out
so this is the second time and one last time
837.48 -> now you might be wondering how do you
get big equipment inside the glove box
843.78 -> so there is two ways actually to do that if the
equipment is let's say of a medium to big size
853.2 -> so basically a size that would fit in here
this is the same kind of tube like the small
858.72 -> one that we use right now but it is much
bigger so for example the scale or this
864.24 -> kind of containers would fit through here but
the biggest question might arise of how do you
869.4 -> put this very big machine inside the glove box so
for this purposes one needs to remove the glass
876.6 -> that surrounds the box and take it all out
place the machine inside and close it back
882.24 -> however of course this would remove the high
the Argon inside the the glove box and will
888.06 -> fill everything with oxygen so then a very good
purification needed is needed and a long time
894.12 -> before actually you're certain that argon is again
inside the glove box and no oxygen is present
903.3 -> and here it is again in its
natural environment foreign
932.64 -> I hope you enjoyed this video in a day
in the lab and the day into my work let
939.12 -> me know in the comments down below what
else would you want me to show and talk
943.92 -> about during my work in this lab don't
forget to like And subscribe and leave
948.06 -> a comment down below with your thoughts
about this visit and future visits as
951.48 -> well it's been Elina your friendly nuclear
physicist and until next time see you soon
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7e93NeohaE