News Archive

By Lindy Brophy

The International Atomic Energy Agency has put its trust in UWA to help keep the world safe from nuclear attack. We have become the first university in the world to join the United Nations’ international nuclear verification program, to help monitor global nuclear safeguards.

Winthrop Professor David Sampson , Director of the Centre for Microscopy, Characterisation and Analysis , says the data produced in his Centre from environmental dust particles containing minute amounts of uranium will create an isotopic fingerprint full of information.

“The particle analysis that we will do can tell the Agency (IAEA) how enriched the uranium is, and in some cases identify a source of the uranium,” he said. The process will help police the UN nuclear non-proliferation treaty and monitor global nuclear capabilities, potentially identifying illicit enrichment facilities and weapons programs.

“The samples we receive are cotton swipes that have been wiped over surfaces in nuclear installations around the world by IAEA inspectors. We extract the dust from the cotton swipe, put it onto a holder and then use our IMS 1280 ion microprobe to analyse the samples. The IMS 1280 has amazing particle analysis capabilities. The difficulty is finding the few uraniumcontaining particles against a background of millions of ordinary dust particles.” Each sample takes between one and two days to analyse.

Professor Sampson emphasised that there was absolutely no hazard or health issue with analysing the samples on the Crawley campus. “The particles are as small as 300 nanometres (300 billionths of a metre) and are not classified as nuclear material. We need no special shielding and the samples will be screened for radiation by the IAEA. UWA will not receive any radioactive samples.”

He said the UWA scientists’ job was not to interpret the samples, merely to obtain and relay the data.

“Including our University in the monitoring process has been a great show of faith by the Agency. And we are taking our responsibilities very seriously,” he said. And confirming that faith, Deputy Director General Herman Nackaerts travelled from Vienna to participate in a signing ceremony held at UWA. He was joined by Dr Robert Floyd, Director General of the Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office (ASNO).

“Only a few people will actually do the analyses, chosen from members of the SIMS team, including Assistant Professor John Cliff , Associate Professor Matt Kilburn , Assistant Professor Laure Martin and Dr Rong Liu . Only those people will be allowed into the room while samples are being tested.”

He said about 500 samples were collected world-wide each year. UWA could be testing up to 40 of them.

Emeritus Professor Craig Atkins , the former director of the CMCA, and Professor Cliff both have previous links with the IAEA. “The Agency was very impressed with our quality manual, 164 pages on our processes and the quality of our systems, which we had to provide. By exceeding their expectations with our quality processes and our results on blind test samples, we gave them the confidence that we could deliver.”

Australia will soon take up a temporary seat on the UN Security Council and it has a semi-permanent seat on the governing board of the IAEA. “This partnership makes a big and tangible contribution to Australia’s efforts towards world security,” Professor Sampson said.

The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Paul Johnson, said UWA was committed to serving the local, Australian and global community for the greater good, and helping society to create a better future.

Published in UWA News , 12 November 2012