ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING SPRING 2018 COLLOQUIUM SERIES
Friday, March 2, 2018 • 12:15 PM
F.L. Castleman, Room 212
"Plutonium Contamination of the Environment: What's the Problem?”
By
Mavrik Zavarin, PhD
Director, Glenn T. Seaborg Institute,
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Abstract:
Over the past 75 years, the global inventory of plutonium on earth has increased by a factor of approximately 106. A fraction of this plutonium inventory has been released into the environment and can be identified in sediments, rock and glacial ice. As a result, plutonium environmental chemistry has gained sincere interest both in the public and scientific communities. Plutonium aquatic chemistry, mineral/water interface reactions, interaction with microbes, as well as its association with particles have been studied to quantify plutonium mobility in and risk to the environment. In this presentation, we will review the major plutonium contamination events, discuss what we have learned regarding its longterm fate in our environment, and provide examples of site remediation and monitoring efforts.
Bio:
Dr. Mavrik Zavarin received his BS in chemistry (1993) and PhD in Soil Chemistry (1998) from the University of California at Berkeley. Dr. Zavarin has spent much of his career at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) studying actinide environmental chemistry. He is presently the Director of the Glenn T. Seaborg Institute. The Seaborg Institute promotes collaborative research between LLNL and the academic community in radiochemistry and nuclear forensics. It serves as a national center for the education and training of undergraduate and graduate students, postdocs and faculty in transactinium science. Dr. Zavarin holds adjunct appointments at Las Positas Community College and Clemson University.
For more information, contact: Tiffiny Thibodeau at tiffiny.thibodeau@uconn.edu