Eurokonference and NEA Workshop Actinide - XAS - 98

Euroconference and NEA Workshop Actinide-XAS-98

During recent years the interest in applying synchrotron radiation techniques to the investigation of radionuclides and actinides in particular has grown rapidly. Important research topics where a molecular-level understanding is mandatory include the behavior of radionuclides in the environment, nuclear waste management, radiopharmaceutical chemistry, and general actinide chemistry and physics.

On October 4-6, 1998 the first Euroconference and NEA Workshop on Speciation, Techniques, and Facilities for Radioactive Materials at Synchrotron Light Sources, Actinide-XAS-98, took place at the ESRF/ILL site. Over 90 scientists came from 13 European countries, USA, and Japan. Among them were 22 young scientists with an average age of 26 who benefited from travel awards provided by the European Commission. The main objectives of Actinide-XAS-98 were:

• to introduce the type of information that can be obtained from synchrotron-based techniques to environmental and radionuclide scientists,
• to report the latest results on radionuclide/actinide work, and
• to inform on protocols which are in place for actinide research at several synchrotron storage rings throughout the world.

The first day had tutorial character and introduced several synchrotron radiation techniques. H. Nitsche described the sources of environmental contamination by radionuclides, the importance of understanding the chemical behavior of radionuclides under environmental conditions, and the role x-ray absorption fine-structure (XAFS) spectroscopy plays in these investigations. D.C. Koningsberger, J. Goulon, and A. Filipponi presented the physical principle of XAFS and related experimental and theoretical aspects. V.I. Nefedov gave an introduction to x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). D.K. Shuh described the complimentary application of XPS, near-edge x-ray absorption fine structure, and x-ray emission spectroscopy on actinide materials at e ...