New International Forum for Heavy Metal Research
Research on radioactive heavy metals in environmental systems considers diverse tasks, e.g. restoration measures for contaminated industrial fallow grounds, the safe storage of chemical-toxic and radioactive waste, carbon dioxide sequestration to reduce green-house gas emissions as well as the construction and operation of deep geothermal power plants. The research activities are based, on the one hand, on experimental investigations; on the other hand, theoretical modelling is of great interest.
According to Katharina Müller from the Institute of Resource Ecology at HZDR, there has not been much overlap so far between theory and experiments in this field, although they often give complementary information and, hence, they can contribute to a better understanding of the behaviour of heavy metals in the environment. Together with Robin Steudtner and Satoru Tsushima, she is organizing the new workshop, which hopefully will bundle and strengthen the respective research activities and act as a nucleus for an international network.
The first international workshop "Advanced Techniques in Actinide Spectroscopy" (ATAS) at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf will take place from November 5 to 7, 2012. The organizers are expecting about 75 scientists from Europe, the US, Australia, Japan and China. They are satisfied with the interest in the kick-off workshop: "It seems that we hit a nerve for more intense scientific cooperation in this area".
The workshop consists of seven sessions with oral and poster presentations by international scientists. Furthermore, guided tours to the radiochemical labs and other research facilities at HZDR are offered to the participants. The workshop is supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG), the European research network "Actinet i3", the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) and by partners from industry.
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