Nigeria’s 31 kw nuclear research reactor, NIRR-1, celebrates 20 years anniversary in 2024.
Activities lined-up for the event include a symposium in the Conference Hall on 2 May, 2024, on the achievements, challenges and prospects since it started operation.
The reactor, which is a Miniature Neutron Source Reactor, MNSR, is low-power, tank-in-pool with light water neutron moderator.
It is for neutron activation analysis, radioisotope production, research and training.
It is located in the Centre for Energy Research and Training, CERT, in Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.
Nigeria has no nuclear power plant and this is the only nuclear reactor in the country.
Sunday Jonah as Professor of Nuclear Physics in Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, and Research Reactor Professor, led the team that successfully converted NIRR-1 from using weapon-grade Highly Enriched Uranium, HEU (70.2 per cent), to Low Enriched Uranium (13 per cent) in 2018.
The one kilogram Highly Enriched fissile Uranium-235 nuclear fuel was sent back to the manufacturers in China, thereby closing the inventory.
It was replaced with Low Enriched Uranium, which is not of nuclear-grade, also from China.
The reactor was designed and built by China Institute of Atomic Energy.
The government of USA paid for the entire exercise as part of its efforts to reduce global threats from possible nuclear terrorism. The programme was under Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins, Co-ordinator for Threat Reduction Programmes, US Department of State.
NIRR-1 in 2018 was the second and last nuclear reactor in Africa, after Ghana in 2016/2017, to be converted from HEU to LEU.
Professor Sunday Jonah was formerly the Reactor Manager of NIRR-1 (2007 – 2011) before rising to become Director of CERT, Zaria, in November, 2021.
NIRR-1 in CERT has been running without accident or incident since it first went critical on 3 February, 2004.
