ASPIRE: Advanced Self-Powered sensor units in Intense Radiation Environments

处理英国的核遗产是欧洲最大、最重要的环境补救计划，预计未来120年的支出将达到1150亿GB。这笔费用的很大一部分与高、中级放射性废物的退役和管理有关；这些废物的放射性太强，不能由人直接处理。因此，需要远程操作的废物表征技术，以便能够在其中间和最终存储位置监测这种废物形式。由于存在极端辐射场，回溯安装依靠电缆进行电力和数据传输的传感器是不可行的，因此需要用于为传感器供电的替代技术。我们的项目将寻求通过开发一种解决方案来应对这一挑战，该解决方案使用先进的钻石材料从放射性衰变中获取能量，为包含多个传感器的小型便携式设备提供动力，这些传感器可以通过无线网络传输数据。这项技术具有明显的好处，包括：更少的布线、更少的维护、更少的操作员剂量以及延长传感器或移动平台的寿命。由这种设备供电的传感器将能够在很长一段时间内提供信息，否则收集这些信息将具有挑战性，但对于长期安全情况来说，仍然非常重要。因此，这项技术可能会为UK plc节省大量资金。到项目结束时，我们的目标是通过以下方式展示这项技术：(I)在塞拉菲尔德的现役核电站部署；(Ii)在日本京都大学反应堆研究所的反应堆堆芯部署。

Addressing the UK's nuclear legacy is the largest, most important environmental remediation programme in Europe, with estimated expenditure of £115 billion over the next 120 years. A significant proportion of this cost is associated with decommissioning and management of high and intermediate level radioactive waste; material that is too radioactive for direct human handling. There is therefore a need for remotely operated, waste characterisation technologies to enable monitoring of such wasteforms in their interim and final storage locations.Due to the extreme radiation fields present, retrospectively fitting sensors that rely upon cables for power and data transmission is not feasible and hence alternative technologies for powering sensors are required. Our project will seek to address this challenge by developing a solution using advanced diamond materials to harvest energy from radioactive decay to power small, portable devices containing multiple sensors that pass data over wireless networks.There are clear benefits for the technology including: less wiring, less maintenance, less dose to operators and an extended lifespan of sensors or mobile platforms. The sensors powered by such devices would be able to provide information for long periods of time that would otherwise be challenging to gather but none the less very important for long term safety cases. Therefore, this technology could represent a significant financial saving for UK plc. By the end of the project we would aim to demonstrate this technology by: (i) deployment in active plant at Sellafield; and (ii) deployment in a reactor core at Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute, Japan.