Doug Akers
Doug Akers
October / November 2011
Volume 9 Number 5
Doug Akers is a prolific innovator at Idaho National Laboratory in an area where few people tread—using nuclear physics and chemistry to find solutions to big problems. You could say Akers has spent nearly 40 years of “half lives” on a wide variety of nuclear puzzles ranging from using nuclear accelerator produced antimatter for non-destructive material testing of airplane components to characterization of materials, including those from nuclear reactors (e.g. Three Mile Island) and facilities such as those at the Hanford site. Most of his career has been spent working on these problems at Idaho National Laboratory.
One of his current projects has been developing an innovative, in situ radiation detector system for measuring hard-to-measure radioactive isotopes located underneath the Hanford site. During the past two years, he has a led a team in developing two patent-pending prototypes: a technetium-99 detector system and a multi detector probe system, both licensed to North Wind, Inc. Each system currently supports environmental cleanup efforts at the Hanford Tank Farm operations in Washington State.
“Our annular beta spectrometer system, called ABSS, uses a unique multi-layer plastic detector and specialized measurement technology developed for the nuclear physics community to allow direct quantification of technetium 99 in the presence of significant background radiation,” Akers said. “We are working to measure the presence of the hard-to measure radionuclides at depths up to 200 feet below the Hanford Tank Farms.”
Closer to home, Akers and his colleagues have developed a fissile material monitor (FMM) that is deployed at the accelerated retrieval project managed by the Idaho site cleanup contractor to prepare decontamination and decommissioning soils and debris for ultimate disposal. The FMM can characterize wastes for disposal in as little as 30 seconds.
Akers has been issued six patents, has four more in review, and three in development, plus two granted copyrights. His technical achievements stimulated his entrepreneurial interests and provided the basis for a positron annihilation startup company that did non-destructive fatigue testing and analysis to predict material failures for the Navy, Air Force, NASA and other federal agencies. He served as the company’s chief technology officer while on entrepreneurial leave from the INL.
“It has been very rewarding to generate a business based on what you have developed creatively,” Akers said about the Positron Systems, Inc. startup effort. “It is gratifying to see your intellectual work develop through the commercialization process to deliver technology that can reveal when components such as aircraft engines or wings might fail in the future.”
Akers’ patents spawned an additional wing to the Idaho State University Accelerator Center, where Positron conducted research and testing.
ABSS may well offer a breakthrough in creating understanding of technetium’s mobility. This has been a major challenge and special goal at the Hanford waste site because of the many critical problems that this radionuclide causes.
Fred Mann, Hanford’s technical project manager for the technetium 99 project, said that the detection system was a major breakthrough and a key product from the Department of Energy’s national laboratories. He also estimated that the system could save more than $100 million in remediation costs at the Hanford site.
Akers also has other projects in motion, including the development of specialized materials assay techniques with multiple patent submissions, a research agreement with a major nuclear fuel manufacturing company using positron measurement devices to study irradiated fuel cladding and fuels and work on developing a rapid transuranic materials characterization system.
For ten years after the Three Mile Island accident, Akers also played an important role in assessment and monitoring of the damaged facility. He was a technical team leader, budget manager, and principal investigator in evaluating core materials and fission product behavior for the damaged TMI-2 reactor core.
“Working on assessing the TMI reactor core damage was an exceptional opportunity,” he said. “What I learned from that experience has generated ideas about new technologies to assess fuel conditions in reactor operations and accidents and has helped with the issues at the Fukushima plants in Japan.”
Akers is not slowing down. He is working on a positron (a form of antimatter) battery for use in space exploration that will be self-contained to generate positrons and stores antimatter for power generation and other applications. This research may suggest other technologies for use in nuclear material detection and measurement.
In 2011, Akers was selected for induction into the Inventors’ Hall of Fame at INL. A prolific inventor and nuclear chemist, Akers shares his knowledge by regularly publishing peer-reviewed articles, now numbering 18, plus dozens of papers in symposia and more than three dozen special reports on accidents, incidents and material conditions.
Keith Arterburn is a writer at Idaho National Laboratory.
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