Management of High-Value Air-Reactive Material at Oak Ridge National Laboratory

The US Department of Energy (DOE) manages an inventory of materials that contains a range of long-lived radioactive isotopes that were produced from the 1960s through the 1980s by irradiating targets in production reactors to produce special heavy isotopes or isotopically enriching them using the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Calutrons for DOE programmatic use, scientific research, and industrial and medical applications. Since the production reactors and enrichment facilities that produced many of these materials have been shut down, they are considered unique materials that are not likely to be produced again. ORNL uses these materials in DOE’s center for production, storage, and distribution of transuranium isotopes (plutonium through californium) and other related nuclear research programs. ORNL also operates the High Flux Isotope Reactor, which provides one of the highest flux neutron sources for production of isotopes for medical, industrial, and nuclear research programs. As a result, ORNL has an inventory of radioisotopes that are being managed for ongoing research programs and being held for reuse because they have potential intrinsic value to DOE. ORNL has an initiative underway to better manage these materials, focusing on high-value and potentially air-reactive materials. This paper describes the actions ORNL is taking to manage these inventories through reuse and disposal.