MANUFACTURING | NOVEL MATERIALS
Materials for the nuclear century
From geopolymer wasteforms and plutonium disposition to fusion-grade
ceramics and advanced fuels, materials specialists are developing technologies aimed at some of nuclear energy’s most persistent challenges. Lucideon’s chief marketing officer Richard Goodhead and director of commerce Tim Abbott tell NEi about the growing role of advanced materials in nuclear.
Lucideon is working with the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) on a materials- led fusion innovation programme. Source: UKAEA.
THE NUCLEAR SECTOR has always been intimately coupled with materials development. From the graphite and zirconium fuel cladding found in some reactor designs to the specialised steels in containment systems, advances in nuclear technology have frequently depended on developments in materials science. As the industry faces the dual challenge of managing decades of accumulated radioactive waste while developing advanced reactors and fusion systems, the importance of materials innovation is becoming even more pronounced. For international materials technology company
Lucideon, this convergence of challenges has created opportunities across the nuclear life cycle across sectors as diverse as advanced fuels, fusion, plutonium disposition, reactor materials and waste immobilisation applications. While the technologies behind the various materials
challenges differ significantly, a common theme runs through many of them — finding materials that can perform in environments where conventional solutions are approaching their limits.
Rethinking waste immobilisation One of the most immediate challenges facing nuclear operators worldwide concerns the management of accumulated legacy radioactive wastes. For decades, encapsulation has been the default solution for many waste streams using grout or cement. However, the
36 | July 2026 |
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industry now faces three related issues. The first is the potential security of supply concern for some of the specialist raw materials used in nuclear-grade cement formulations. The second concerns so-called ‘problematic wastes’ — waste streams for which there is currently no effective treatment route. The third is environmental performance. Abbott argues these emerging challenges are beginning
to expose the limitations of the conventional approach, saying: “In the nuclear industry globally there is an ongoing challenge of how to deal with problematic wastes.” Lucideon’s response has been the development of what it describes as MIDAR® geopolymer technologies, more accurately the MIDAR-Augmented Lower-cost Lower-carbon Encapsulation Technique (MALLETTM
). Unlike conventional cement systems, geopolymers can be
tailored to meet particular operational requirements. “The flexibility you get with a geopolymer versus a cement is the ability to adapt and optimise the chemistry to deal with the situation that you’re facing,” says Abbott. “You can optimise the chemistry to develop the properties that you require from your encapsulation material.” This flexibility extends both to the final waste form and to
the encapsulation process itself. Goodhead highlights that formulation optimisation can also influence how the material behaves both before and after curing. “You might want to tailor the viscosity and how that product flows in the process of encapsulation,” he says as an example.
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