Speaker
Description
Demands with respect to yield, purity, reliability are driving development efforts. Recent years focus on nanomaterials: release bottleneck in RIB production where nanometric size is promising for diffusion-limited isotopes. This often goes hand in hand with increase in surface area, which significantly impact effusion efficiency for open pores. Nanotechnology has been considered for addressing both pathways by nano-structurisation of the target material, e.g. reducing material dimensionality or additionally to increase, maintain or at least retain porosity and surface area through anti-sintering agents under operational conditions. Some submicron and nanometric materials are already routinely employed, e.g. SiC, Y2O3, CaO and potential was demonstrated by 10-yield increase for many isotopes even for a low-density nano material due to increased diffusion times.[1]
Nevertheless, controlled development remains challenging. Additionally, the risks of this technology for health and environment are not fully understood yet, adopted measures for containing these materials should be applied. Therefore, not only the materials itself but subsequently the infrastructure for reliable development, production and safe handling need to evolve.
Because of this many organizations enforce tight regulations which render difficult the research of nanomaterials, leading to the construction of a completely new laboratory: the NANOLAB to produce and develop nano-actinide target materials. With the NANOLAB recently begun operation for the development and production of nano-actinide materials, adequate infrastructure for non-radioactive materials is limited. Therefore, we combine the existing separated laboratories into one classified laboratory complex including Nano 3 – Production, Nano 2 – Development, Nano 1 – Chemical and thermal activities and an adjunctive chemical storage, to streamline the production of established and the implementation of newly developed materials under safe yet efficient conditions by adopting EPFL methodology for working with engineered nanomaterials for CERN.[2] The motivation for this laboratory complex, the status and design will be presented.
Keywords: nanomaterials, target material, chemical lab, more yield, non-radioactive
References:
[1] J.P. Ramos, et al., Nucl. Instrum. Meth. Phys. Res., Sect. B, 376 (2016), 81
[2] Directive technique complémentaire à la LEX 1.5.1: Directive concernant le travail avec les nanomatériaux manufacturés (ENM), Mai 2025 Version 1.0