H Canyon Safeguards Test Bed Activities

Over the past few years, the National Nuclear Security Administration Office of Nuclear Safeguards and Security has sponsored a project to establish a Safeguards Test Bed at the Savannah River Site’s (SRS) H Canyon Facility to evaluate novel technologies being developed across the DOE complex. H Canyon provides an appropriate location for testing many technologies focused on monitoring the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle because it is the only nuclear chemical separations plant still in operation in the U.S. Historically, this facility recovered uranium and neptunium-237 from aluminium-clad, enriched-uranium fuel tubes from SRS nuclear reactors and other domestic and foreign research reactors. Today the facility, in conjunction with SRS HB Line nuclear facility, is working to provide the initial feed material to the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility. Many additional campaigns are also in the planning process, including processing of used nuclear fuels. These on-going campaigns serve as the basis for safeguards technology demonstrations. The F/H Analytical Laboratory, which supports H Canyon operations, has also been included as a part of the Safeguards Test Bed. H Canyon, F/H Analytical Laboratory, and the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL), have collaborated with several groups in the DOE complex to conduct demonstrations of novel safeguards technologies at SRS facilities. The first technology to be installed and tested as part of the Safeguards Test Bed was an in-line UV-visible spectrophotometer, developed at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), to monitor Pu in solution. Testing of this instrumentation was recently completed. This spectrophotometer was effective at monitoring the Pu valence states during H Canyon operations. There are currently three additional technologies planned for demonstration in either H Canyon or F/H Laboratory. These include an additional ANL UV-visible spectrophotometer that will be tested at another location in H Canyon; a benchtop high resolution x-ray spectrometer, being developed by Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) that will be tested in F/H Analytical Laboratory; and a wavelength dispersive spectrometer, also being developed at LANL, that will be tested in H Canyon. This paper will summarize current R&D testing and discuss possible future collaborations.