Open Nuclear challenge: Remote characterisation of mixed contaminated waste

The National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) operates facilities on the Sellafield site. They are custodians of a large, concrete shielded area of waste, Red Bunker, which sits within NNL’s Windscale Laboratory.

NNL would like to explore opportunities to characterise and classify the waste so that it can be prioritised for safe removal and storage. This is in support of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s (NDA) long-term strategy of decommissioning, remediation and post operational clean out (POCO) of legacy nuclear facilities.

NNL is seeking technology which can be used to characterise and classify the Red Bunker waste pile to identify the waste objects contained within the bunker and their levels of radioactivity.

A challenge statement can be viewed for full details of solutions requirements and challenge constraints.

A challenge webinar was held on Friday 10 November, 10:30am – 12pm to provide further details about this challenge and the opportunity it represents. A recording of the challenge webinar is available here.

If you think you have an idea to help NNL solve this challenge, simply hit the ‘Add idea’ button and complete the short funding application form. The best ideas will be awarded up to £12k of funding for a 12 week ‘Discover’ project to explore the proposal further.  Successful projects can then unlock further funding to work in partnership with NNL to maximise the potential of ideas and leverage unparalleled nuclear sector knowledge and expertise.

The closing date for applications is Friday 1 December at 12pm.