Diamond Active Materials Laboratory

The new Active Materials Building houses the Diamond Active Materials Laboratory. This suite of new labs will enable the preparation of radioactive samples, enhancing support for its user community and advancing the wide range of research into ‘active’ materials.

This new facility significantly improves the capabilities for researchers, and additionally provides its Users with the flexibility to prepare samples on site, enabling them to perform experiments that were previously impossible in the UK.

It is hoped that these experiments will provide valuable scientific evidence and help inform policy and decision-making around both nuclear legacy and future nuclear use.

• Wet and and dry laboratories equipped for handling a wide range of active materials
• A counting room for active materials to be characterised and secure storage as appropriate

The Active Materials Building is an associated facility of the National Nuclear User Facility (NNUF). To learn more about the NNUF, please visit their website.

All users of the laboratory including the storage room are requested to acknowledge the EPSRC (Grant: EP/T011246/1) for funding the facility in any publications arising from their work at Diamond.

There ae two anaerobic glove boxes. A dry anerobic one with a protective front screen with 2.5 mm equivalent of Pb to enable the safer handling of materials and a solvent tolerant one.

There are fume cupboards in each lab. There will also be an aneorobic "Coy" chamber in the wet lab. There is an optical microscope, centrifuge, stirrer hotplate, balances, pellet press. There is a tube furnace  (1200C max T) available in the dry lab with  inert gases and dilute hydrogen available.

The counting room has a Perkin-Elmer Tricarb 4180TR and a Mirion gamma spectrometer.

In the safe storage room which is accessible out of hours for sample exchange on beamlines, samples can be stored in a freezer, fridge or lead lined safe as required.  Also large samples can be stored in their own transport containers.

Understanding structural change in materials is a major challenge for the nuclear industry and the academics working in this field, and scientific research is key to provide evidence and support for decision-making in terms of infrastructure projects and/or designing nuclear facilities. The vision for the Active Materials Laboratory is to significantly improve the capabilities for researchers ranging from those involved in construction materials for nuclear energy facilities to waste management, complementing Diamond's existing offering of excellent analytical instruments for active materials research.

Callum Robinson, University of Manchester PhD student, demonstrating the loading of a sample containing uranium onto Diamond’s I20-scanning beamline

Using the Active Materials Laboratory, users will be able to manipulate and prepare (very) active and also relatively shortlived samples for study at Diamond. Users will be able to do experiments at Diamond that were previously impossible in the UK. Being able to load samples into suitable sample cells means that active materials properties can be studied under temperatures and particular atmospheres. It is necessary to understand the impact of prolonged radiation on the mechanical performance of a range of materials such as graphite and Zircaloy used in fission and fusion facilities. 

Understanding the corrosion impact on radionuclide behaviour in encapsulated or enclosed form is vital in understanding the state of our current waste stockpile and making the most economical choices in its handling and disposal. Understanding the future behaviour of the UK's proposed geological disposal facility requires intimate knowledge of the interaction of radionuclides with the materials used in the construction of the facility. Furthermore, being able to run long-term experiments on site for sampling at suitable intervals and also the ability to prepare solutions on-site and manage the samples post-experiment for further non-synchrotron study will add crucial capability.

All the equipment is now available.

Access

There are no charges for using the laboratory for science intended for publication. Access is available to both Diamond users in conjunction with scheduled beamtime and also through the offline lab scheme. Please put in your beamtime proposal if you wish to use the laboratory to aid scheduling.

Access for proprietary research is available for both academic and industry users.

Access to the Active Materials Laboratory will only be provided upon receipt of on-site induction and training from Health Physics and AML Technicians.

If you are a user from industry and would like to use the Active Materials building, please contact Diamond's Industrial Liaison Office industry@diamond.ac.uk

For any questions about the Active Materials Laboratory, please contact the lab team at DiamondActiveLab@diamond.ac.uk