Los Alamos turns to electrochemistry to decontaminate retired plutonium gloveboxes
From the Energy digest for 2026-10-23
What happened: ANS reported (Oct 23, ~5:04 PM ET) on an electrochemical system for semiautonomous decontamination of radiological gloveboxes at Los Alamos — the heavily contaminated enclosures used in plutonium operations. Every glovebox used in plutonium work eventually reaches the end of its service life, and disposing of one in its contaminated state as transuranic waste is orders of magnitude more expensive than disposal as low-level waste, while consuming limited capacity at the transuranic waste repository.
What's genuinely new: a concrete technique aimed at moving glovebox disposition out of the costliest waste class — contamination stripped electrochemically, run semiautonomously rather than by crews in hands-on contact.
Watch: deployment status at Los Alamos, measured decontamination results, and whether gloveboxes treated this way can be down-classified to low-level waste.
Links: ANS