The U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management and contractor Isotek Systems, LLC have installed a new analytical laboratory at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory to accelerate uranium-233 cleanup and medical isotope production, according to a Department of Energy release. The facility provides in-house capabilities to process and analyze radioactive materials.
Building 2026 Analytical Lab Operations
The new laboratory is housed in Building 2026, where active processing operations are underway to eliminate the nation’s inventory of uranium-233 stored at the Tennessee facility. Uranium-233 was originally manufactured in the 1950s and 1960s for potential use in nuclear reactors. After it proved unviable as a fuel source, the material was sent to Oak Ridge from various nuclear sites around the country.
According to the Department of Energy, Isotek has already successfully disposed of 75% of the inventory. However, significant cleanup challenges remain for the remaining material, which requires processing to be converted into a safe form for transport and disposal out of state.
To establish the new lab, the Department of Energy and Isotek partnered with Teledyne Brown Engineering to equip and operate the space. The installation allows Isotek to analyze samples of processed material internally rather than sending them to off-site facilities. According to agency releases, this change reduces sample analysis turnaround times from an average of four months down to two weeks.
Advancing Cancer Treatment Research
Alongside waste disposal, the cleanup project extracts rare medical isotopes known as thorium-229 from the uranium-233 material before processing and disposal, according to agency announcements. This extraction supports a public-private partnership with nuclear innovation company TerraPower Isotopes.
TerraPower Isotopes uses a decay method to extract actinium-225 from the recovered thorium-229. Actinium-225 is currently utilized in clinical trials for next-generation cancer treatments around the world. According to the Department of Energy, Isotek’s extraction efforts have increased the global supply of thorium-229 by over 2,000%, with commercial cancer treatments using the material expected to launch in 2028.
“The Building 2026 analytical lab will allow Isotek to not only transfer thorium-229 to TerraPower Isotopes much more quickly, but it will also allow the processing team to make adjustments to increase the recovery of thorium-229 much more quickly,” Isotek President and Project Manager Sarah Schaefer stated in the release.