Working with Tritium in the Laboratory Environment

Date:

8:30am-4:30pm, Monday, May 23, 2016, Sheraton Albuquerque Airport Hotel, Albuquerque, NM

Course Objectives

  • Learn how to handle and contain tritium in the laboratory without dosing yourself or your coworkers, or contaminating the laboratory or the local environment.
  • Learn the common methods for the detection of tritium in gases, liquids, and solids.
  • Learn how to clean up tritium contamination.
  • Learn how to preserve the purity of tritium containing compounds during handling and storage.
  • Discover why tritium is the “Houdini of the Periodic Table”

Course Description

This introductory course will provide the basic knowledge, tools and methods required for the safe use, handling and storage of tritium containing gases, liquids, and solids in the laboratory scale environment. The general and unique characteristics of tritium chemistry and physics will be discussed. The radiological hazards of tritium, human exposure pathways, and methods for predicting and preventing tritium dose will be reviewed. The commonly used methods for detecting and measuring tritium in the gaseous, liquid, and solid phase will be presented along with example calculations. The primary mechanisms responsible for the spread of tritium contamination will be reviewed along with the principle strategies, materials, and apparatus necessary for the effective containment of tritium. Methods for tritium decontamination of vacuum systems and ambient surfaces will also be presented.

Who Should Attend?

Scientists, engineers, technicians, and their managers who require an understanding of the basic technologies and methods required to safely handle and work with tritium.

Instructor:  Michael Current, Frontier Semiconductor

Henry Peebles is a Principle Member of the Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He has received degrees in chemistry and biology from New Mexico State University and a Ph.D. in analytical chemistry and surface science from the University of Texas at Austin in 1983. Henry has over 35 years of research and applied chemistry experience, and has served as the technical lead working with tritium in the Gas Laboratory at the Neutron Generator Production Facility at Sandia for the last 13 years.

Russell Jarek received his Ph.D. in Chemistry in 1998 from the Univeristy of California at Santa Barbara, specializing in physical chemistry using mass spectrometry and ab-initio theoretical modeling to understand small molecule rearrangement and solvation. He then took a post-doctoral position and subsequent staff position at Sandia National Laboratories, where he eventually joined the Analytical Technologies Dept.’s gas lab in 2010 and has been working with tritium (gaseous, hydride and contaminated materials) since then.

Jessica A. Bierner received her bachelor’s degree in Chemistry with a minor in Math and Physics from New Mexico State University in May of 2009. She finished her Master’s in Inorganic Chemistry, also from NMSU, in December 2014 while working at Sandia. Her thesis work was performed on the synthesis and characterization of a matrix-free nanocomposite. She has spent the past 4.5 years working at Sandia, with the past 8 months as a Member of Technical Staff in the Analytical Technologies department.

Course Materials

Course Notes

Cost:  $575.00

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