Congratulations to Ms. Thalia Standish, PhD candidate from the Department of Chemistry at Western University, winner of the 2015 Dr. N. Stewart McIntyre Award in Surface Science. Thalia’s research abstract was entitled “Galvanic Corrosion between Copper and Carbon Steel: An Investigation for Nuclear Waste Disposal Containers”. Thalia has used a...Read More
Prof. David Shoesmith, Department of Chemistry and Surface Science Western Director is the winner of this year’s H.H. Uhlig Award of the Corrosion Division of the Electrochemical Society. Dave will receive the award, and a reception in his honour will be held, at the Electrochemical Society fall meeting in Phoenix...Read More
It has been proposed that Canadian nuclear fuel waste be disposed of 500-1000 m deep in either granitic rock or sedimentary clay deposits. Within the multi-barrier system proposed, the fuel wastes would be sealed in a metallic container, which, in a sedimentary clay environment, could be a single thick-walled design...Read More
We are pleased to announce the completed installation of our new Bruker Tensor II FTIR system with Hyperion 2000 microscope! This new system provides all of the same analysis options that SSW has offered to you over the years, as well as some exciting new capabilities. We have purchased a...Read More
The primary goal of this research was to elucidate the key influences of the alloying elements in Ni-Cr-Mo alloys on their electrochemical behaviour. Two alloys, varying in Cr and Mo content, were studied in deaerated 5 M NaCl solutions. As indicated in Figure 1, potentiostatic polarization followed by electrochemical impedance...Read More
Titanium alloys are highly corrosion resistant under oxidizing conditions, but can suffer crevice corrosion at elevated temperatures (>70°C) if the surface is occluded by another material, such as a deposit, a poor weld or a crack. The conditions which develop within a crevice are such that, in the event of...Read More
This recent research project was designed to investigate the influence of carbonate/bicarbonate, the key groundwater constituents likely to influence fuel dissolution inside a failed nuclear waste disposal container, on the reactivity of different uranium oxide (UO2) specimens. A cyclic voltammetric (CV) study of doped UO2 (Dy-UO2, Gd-UO2, 1.5 at% SIMFUEL...Read More
The proposed Canadian container for the disposal of spent nuclear fuel consists of a dual wall comprised of an outer shell of copper over an inner low alloy steel vessel. Because of manufacturing and fabrication challenges for thick-walled containers, a thin-walled alternative design is being developed. Their fabrication involves coating...Read More
SSW has recently upgraded the EDX system on our Hitachi S4500 field emission SEM to a Quartz PCI XOne SSD X-ray analyzer. The system consists of a PulseTor Maxim silicon drift detector (SDD) combined with a Quartz Imaging XOne image and EDX capture software. The state-of-the-art detector is electronically cooled...Read More
The results of various research and analyses carried out at Surface Science Western were on display as part of Western Science`s Interdisciplinary Research Showcase held on December 2, 2014. Research findings from SSW staff and students and a variety of groups that utilize SSW facilities were presented. In this past...Read More
