Project News | ORF at Western University

Western key to solving million-year waste dilemma

Most of us strive to leave a legacy for a few generations. A team led by Chemistry Professor Jamie Noël, however, is working towards a million-year legacy – with the highest possible stakes.

Noël is the principal investigator in a project analyzing how to build corrosion-proof, copper-clad canisters in which to store Canada’s radioactive nuclear energy waste.

“These containers, we want them to last forever,” said Noël, an award-winning Distinguished Research Professor. “We are considering anything and everything that could be a source of corrosion for these canisters.”

Western researchers testing copper capsules for nuclear waste storage potential

Home to one of the world’s largest nuclear plants, and the radioactive waste that goes with it, Southwestern Ontario also is where scientists are looking for a safe new way to contain spent fuel from the nation’s nuclear reactors.

How research under the sea in British Columbia is helping to implement Canada’s plan in Ontario

Even though the deep geological repository will be nowhere near an ocean, seeing how these two elements of the NWMO’s engineered-barrier system – copper and bentonite clay – stand up to harsh oceanic conditions provides insight into how they will behave at depth in the repository. The coins, after spending months under the heavy ocean waters, have now been sent to research partners at the University of Waterloo and the University of Western Ontario. They will be tested to see how well bentonite clay protected the copper from any microbial activity and other possible corrosive effects.