The need for proliferation-resistance, longer fuel cycles, higher burn up and improvedwaste form characteristics has led to a renewed worldwide interest in thorium-based fuels and fuel cycles. In this paper the GEANT4 Monte Carlo code has been used to simulate the Thorium-Uranium fuel cycle. The accelerator driven fertile to fissile conversion rates have been calculated for various geometries. ...

Recent geochemical studies of uranium-thorium series disequilibrium in rocks from subduction zones require magmas to be transported through the mantle from just above the subducting slab to the surface in as little as approximately 30,000 years. We present a series of laboratory experiments that investigate the characteristic time scales and flow patterns of the diapiric upwelling model of subd...

The spin Hamiltonian parameters of Gd3+ in a single crystal of Thorium disulfide (TI1S2) are analysed by means of the superposition model, in its most general form of a two exponents power law. In fact, the approximated one exponent power law is not suitable for this compound, where the ion-ligand distances show a quite large spread. The results of the analysis are then applied to the case of G...

Electricity generated from nuclear power plants is generally associated with low emissions per kWh generated, an aspect that feeds into the wider debate surrounding nuclear power. This paper seeks to investigate how life-cycle emissions would be affected by including thorium in the nuclear fuel cycle, and in particular its inclusion in technologies that could prospectively operate open Th–U-bas...

A study is presented on the distribution of thorium and radium isotopes in sediments, suspended matter and water collected along Jucar river (East of Spain), using low-level CC-spectrometry. The first aim of this work is to study the thorium and radium activity in water, sediment and suspended matter and their dependence on pH, temperature, conductivity and sediment sizes along Jucar river. The...

The hydrolysis of the thorium(IV) ion in various concentrations of magnesium, calcium, strontium and barium chloride media was studied by the emf method at 25 °c. The data show that the extent of thorium hydrolysis decreases with increasing concentration and hydration energy of the medium ions. The contribution of the concentration of the medium ions to the total medium effect is higher than th...

The northwest corner of the MoonÕs South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin contains a high abundance of thorium and a unique Imbrian aged geomorphologic unit that consists of Ògrooves and moundsÓ (referred to here as the Imbrian grooves). Because the location of these features are almost antipodal to the Imbrium basin, where high-thorium ejecta and seismic energy are expected to have converged, an Imbriu...