The Dr. Westmeier GmbH is actively involved in topical nuclear research projects. For example, it is becoming increasingly more  apparent that nuclear power will play a crucial role in providing energy for mankind and at the same time in protecting our environment. One of the main and serious obstacles to its acceptance as a feasible energy source is concerns about the disposal of long-lived radioactive waste. The question naturally arises: is it possible to destroy these wastes or to at least convert them to short-lived species that would decay much more quickly? Over the past ten years, accelerator driven high intensity spallation neutron sources have gained attention as a potential solution to the problem of the transmutation of radioactive wastes.

The Dr. Westmeier GmbH is now involved in such studies. Experiments on the transmutation of some long-lived radioactive wastes such as ¹²⁹I, ²³⁷Np, and ²⁴¹Am are being carried out at the Nuclotron and Synchrophasotron facilities of the Laboratory for High Energies at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Russia. Spallation neutrons produced by relativistic protons with energies in the range of 0.5 to 1.5 GeV on lead are used to bombard transmutable materials or uranium blankets for further neutron density enhancement.

 Publications

.