|
|
BioSciences
Division Argonne National Laboratory Argonne, IL 60439 phone: (630) 252-4236 FAX: (630) 252-9793 |
Education: | |
| University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois -Chemistry | |
| |
| 1977 - Present | Scientific Associate |
| 1974 - 1977 | Scientific Assistant, Environmental Research Division |
| 1971 - 1973 | Research Director, GBS Laboratories, Inc., Sycamore, IL |
| 1961 - 1971 | Research Technician/Scientific Assistant, Chemistry Division, ANL |
| 1957 - 1958 | Research Technician, Chemistry Division, ANL |
| Experience in radiochemistry and nuclear counting techniques, actinide measurements, isolation of colloidal materials using ultrafiltration, and field studies of subsurface transport of radionuclides. Holder of four patents related to inorganic separations chemistry and sixty-onepeer-reviewed publications with an emphasis on novel separation techniques for trace elements in various matrices, purification of radioisotopes, studies of the behavior of metals in various media, and the physico-chemical behavior of actinides in the environment particularly Pu and Am resulting from fallout. | |
| |
| More than 2 decades of field experience in identifying and measuring the properties of man-made radionuclides released into natural systems. This includes heavy elements such as plutonium, americium, curium, fission products such as technetium, strontium, cesium, and activation products such as Co-60. Recently in collaboration with the 3M Corporation, we have begun to apply our expertise to developing effective and more efficient technologies for the cleanup of radioactive waste present in aqueous systems. Working associations have been formed with domestic and international partners to conduct research on the environmental behavior of debris from weapons testing and radioisotopes released by the nuclear industry. The low level counting equipment and the speciation techniques that we have developed, allow us to gain useful information about the chemical forms as well as the concentration of radioisotopes present over a wide range of concentrations (10-19-10-6 M) in environmental systems. | |
| The samples we work with include environmental materials (soils, sediments and water) and nearly all are low level in anthropogenic radionuclides. For example: water samples typically contain fallout plutonium and americium at a fraction of a radioactive disintegration per day per liter. Surficial Soils and sediments have a little more of these actinide elements and count at 5-20 disintegrations per day per gram. The radiometric separations, developed here over many years provide, from single samples, both qualitative and quantitative information (see attached references) on a variety of radionuclides including actinides (e.g., Pu, Th, Am, Cm and uranium isotopes), fission products (e.g., Y90, Sr90, Tc99, Cs137) plus other naturally-occurring radionuclides and elements associated with the sample matrix (e.g., Ra226, 228, Pb210, Bi210, P0210, Be 7 and trace metals). | |
| The alpha-counting devices used here for environmental measurements have backgrounds of 1-5 radioactive events per 10 days. In addition to the alpha counting system, there are heavily shielded facilities for low level beta and gamma measurements. |
![[Kent]](kent.jpg)