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

解决英国的核遗产是欧洲最大，最重要的环境修复计划，预计在未来120年内将花费1150亿英镑。这一成本的很大一部分与高和中水平放射性废物的退役和管理有关;这些材料的放射性太强，无法由人类直接处理。因此，需要远程操作的废物定性技术，以便能够在其临时和最终储存地点监测此类废物形式，由于存在极端辐射场，依靠电缆供电和数据传输的追溯安装传感器是不可行的，因此需要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金刚石材料从放射性衰变中收集能量，为包含多个传感器的小型便携式设备提供动力，这些传感器通过无线网络传递数据。该技术的明显好处包括：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的平台的寿命。由这种装置供电的传感器将能够提供长时间的信息，否则收集这些信息将是具有挑战性的，但对于长期安全情况仍然非常重要。因此，这项技术可以为英国公司节省大量资金。到项目结束时，我们的目标是通过以下方式展示这一技术：（一）部署在塞拉菲尔德的现役工厂;（二）部署在日本京都大学研究反应堆研究所的反应堆堆芯。

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.