Active Materials Facility at Diamond: Safe, Specialist Environment for Radioactive Materials

Diamond's Active Materials facility provides a wealth of opportunities for users conducting experiments on active materials.

This dedicated facility enables onsite sample handling, preparation, reloading, and reprocessing of active materials for novel experiments. It aids in understanding radiation effects, material performance, and radionuclide corrosion, thereby guiding radioactive waste management decisions.

The facility includes:

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 facility is fully equipped with the following:

Two anaerobic glove boxes - a dry anaerobic 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
Fume cupboards are available in each lab
An anaerobic "Coy" chamber is available in the wet lab.
An optical microscope, centrifuge, stirrer, hotplate, balances, and pellet press.
A tube furnace (1200C max T) is 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.

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

Active Materials Facility

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