Hunter Andrews’ “light” topic was one of the judges' choice winners in the lab’s annual Your Science in a Nutshell competition.
But the science he presented could have a serious impact by giving scientists a real-time look at chemical separations happening in hot cells, glove boxes, or any other hard-to-reach location.
Andrews, an R&D associate in ISED’s Isotope Applications Research group, presented “Insight Through Light: A Modern Approach to Experimentation,” on embedded optical spectroscopy, June 30 in the Weinberg auditorium. He was one of 13 applicants to give presentations; other finalists were Keju An, Darren Driscoll, Ehab Hassan, Nolan Hayes, Dipti Kamath, Claire Marvinney, Pratishtha Shukla, Vaidya Mathamangalath Sethuraman, Logan Sturm, Neil Taylor, Sarah Walters and Xingang Zhao. Other judges' choice winners were Marvinney, Zhao and An; An also won the people's choice award.
Andrews, who said optical spectroscopy has been at the core of research he’s done at the lab over the past three years, said he’s “very passionate” about learning to communicate that research to people without getting mired in technical jargon. That inspired him to prepare the winning 2-minute presentation, which he plans to also use to pitch the benefits of using embedded optical spectroscopy more broadly throughout the lab.
The main point is that something as simple as light can provide us a wealth of information at an incredible speed if we take the time to build it into our systems and continue to develop how we improve it,” he said.
Andrews said ORNL already is using optical spectroscopy sensors.
“The best example of how this can be applied is for the Pu-238 Program for NASA, which uses absorption spectroscopy in the hot cells to monitor their processes,” he said. “This is done through fiber-optic cables, which allow sensitive equipment such as the light source and the spectrometers used to measure the signal to remain in a safe environment. This gives researchers a real-time look at how their separations are going so they can make the appropriate modifications.”
Previously, separations couldn’t be monitored inside the hot cell during processing without sending grab samples to an analytical laboratory, which costs time, he said. Having a real-time monitoring option can increase efficiency.
As another example, Andrews mentioned the development of a laser spectroscopy system for monitoring the off-gas stream from a molten salt reactor.
“The stream would have toxic materials and radionuclides, making a real-time sensor very appealing so that we can make sure it’s been treated appropriately,” he said.
Andrews has published multiple papers on that work in the last year in the journals Nuclear Engineering and Design and Applied Spectroscopy.
Andrews joined ORNL as a post-doctoral researcher in 2020 and has been in his current role for just more than a year. His research focus revolves around the development of in-situ, online monitoring tools for complex environments. His main expertise lies in optical spectroscopy, particularly laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS), a rapid form of spectroscopy capable of elemental analysis regardless of sample form. Other research interests include electrochemistry, spectroelectrochemistry, neutron imaging, chemometrics, and machine learning.
UT-Battelle manages ORNL for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. The Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.
