At the end of 2023, we were awarded a significant contract to design and build a facility to manufacture radioactive power cells to provide a vital source of energy for future space missions. The production process will be housed in a high integrity glovebox suite to ensure the highest levels of safety and cleanliness.
What is a glovebox?
Gloveboxes are containment systems. Their purpose is to protect operators and the wider environment from a potentially harmful material and to protect the material from potential contamination from operators or the outside environment.
An example of both scenarios occurs in the field of nuclear medicine for the production of radioisotopes for diagnostics and therapy in cancer treatment. In the case of nuclear medicine production, the operators must be protected, while the product inside the glovebox must be manufactured in a sterile environment. Gloveboxes and containment systems are used throughout the nuclear and pharmaceutical industry.
NNL programme of work
The UK Space Agency and National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) are to collaborate on the world’s first space battery powered by Americium-241.
NNL’s work, commissioned and funded by the UK Space Agency, will be delivered in a new £19 million laboratory in Cumbria equipped with next-generation equipment and technology. It will deliver a sovereign supply of fuel for space batteries in the context of a global shortage, enabling the UK and its partners to pursue new space science and exploration missions.
Atomic space batteries, also known as Radioisotope Power Systems (RPSs), release heat as the radioactivity within them decays. The heat can be used directly to prevent spacecraft from freezing and it can be converted into electricity to power onboard systems. The batteries go on working for decades, without need for maintenance over the many years in which a spacecraft could be travelling.
National Nuclear Laboratory – a look at our Central Laboratory – https://youtu.be/d67TxfPzls0
About NNL
As the UK’s national laboratory for nuclear fission, NNL is harnessing nuclear science to help solve some of the world’s biggest challenges. NNL’s work is channelled into four strategic areas: Clean Energy, Health and Nuclear Medicine, Environmental Restoration and Security and Non-Proliferation. These four Focus Areas are the cornerstones of NNL’s ambition, shaping what it delivers to customers and for UK society, and how it invests in our future. At a time when society is waking up to acting on the environmental crisis our planet faces, it is impossible to overestimate the scale of the challenge ahead for the UK in reaching net zero by 2050. Without nuclear, the UK will not meet this target on time. And without NNL’s work, the UK nuclear sector cannot deliver what is required. NNL is custodian of a unique set of facilities and capabilities that enable groundbreaking nuclear research and development – including four world-leading laboratories in the North West of England. The most important asset for NNL’s future success, however, is its people. NNL is fortunate to be gifted with some of the most creative and inspired scientific minds in the nuclear sector, in the world. Everyone in NNL’s workforce is here to deliver environmentally and financially sustainable solutions to the major challenges of the 21st century, with the support of customers and partners in government, academia and the supply chain.
© Cyclife Aquila Nuclear – CAN NNL Glovebox Team
