2016 Innovations in Fuel Cycle Research Award Winners

The U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy, Office of Fuel Cycle Technologies, congratulates the following winners of the 2016 Innovations in Fuel Cycle Research Awards.

Winners of the Open Competition
Advanced Fuels
First Place Elizabeth Getto University of Michigan Effect of Irradiation Mode on the Microstructure of Self-Ion Irradiated Ferritic-Martensitic Alloys	Second Place Michael Reichenberger Kansas State University Advances in the Development and Testing of Micro-Pocket Fission Detectors

Material Protection, Control, and Accountancy
First Place Marc Paff University of Michigan Organic Liquid Scintillation Detectors for On-The-Fly Neutron/Gamma Alarming and Radionuclide Identification in A Pedestrian Radiation Portal Monitor	Second Place Marc Ruch University of Michigan Pulse Shape Discrimination Performance of Stilbene Coupled to Low-Noise Silicon Photomultipliers

Material Recovery and Waste Form Development
First Place Marek Piechowicz University of Chicago Design, Synthesis, and Characterization of a Bifunctional Chelator with Ultrahigh Capacity for Uranium Uptake from Seawater Simulant	Second Place Charles Cao Rutgers University A Novel Approach towards Synthesis of Apatite Based Ceramic Waste Forms for Immobilization of Radioactive Iodine (¹²⁹I)

Nuclear Science and Engineering
First Place Daniel Mast University of Nevada at Las Vegas Equation of State for Technetium from X-Ray Diffraction and First-Principle Calculations	Second Place Jaron Senecal Rensselaer Polytechnic University A Modified Tightly Coupled Method for Reactor Transient Simulations

Used Fuel Disposition
First Place Rachel Pope Clemson University Evaluation of Bentonite Engineered Barrier Performance Under Repository Conditions: Diffusion of Np(V) Through Montmorillonite

Winners of the Competition for Students Attending Universities with Less than $600 Million in 2014 Science and Engineering R&D Expenditures
Bradley Childs University of Nevada at Las Vegas The Nature of the Volatile Technetium Species Formed During Vitrification of Borosilicate Glass	Mario Gonzalez University of Utah Application of a One-Dimensional Transient Electrorefiner Model to Predict Partitioning of Plutonium from Curium in a Pyrochemical Spent Fuel Treatment Process

John Kiernicki Purdue University Reductive Silylation of Cp*UO₂(^MesPDI^Me) Promoted by Lewis Bases	Nicholas Luciano University of Tennessee at Knoxville Modeling and Simulation of an Operational VVER-1000 Benchmark with NESTLE

Michael Servis Colorado School of Mines A Molecular Dynamics Study of Tributyl Phosphate and Diamyl Amyl Phosphonate Self-Aggregation in Dodecane and Octane

Winners of the Undergraduate Competition
Hunter Andrews Virginia Commonwealth University Measurement and Analysis of Exchange Current Density of Lanthanides in LiCl-KCl Eutectic Salt	Jason Becker Purdue University A Comparative Study of Single-pulse and Double-pulse Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy with Uranium-containing Samples

Hi Vo University of California at Berkeley Small-Scale Mechanical Testing on Proton Beam-Irradiated 304 SS from Room Temperature to Reactor Operation Temperature

2016 Innovations in Fuel Cycle Research Award Winners

Winners of the Open Competition

Winners of the Competition for Students Attending Universities with Less than $600 Million in 2014 Science and Engineering R&D Expenditures

Winners of the Undergraduate Competition