Decommissioning and distmantling (D&D) operations are a strategic challenge for CEA and the worldwide nuclear industry. Following an Atomic Energy High Commissioner initiative, CEA launched FOCUSDEM, a R&D program for promoting long-term breakthrough innovation related to D&D applications. This program initiated a batch of almost twenty PhD works in 2020 and 2021
FOCUSDEM is a transverse program, involving the whole CEA operational directions. It is strongly connected to the needs of CEA facilities and to their diversity. It is built around three main research topics: characterization and monitoring of nuclear sites and facilities ; decontamination processes, solid and liquid waste conditioning ; process risk management and remediation methods. FOCUSDEM PhDs are networked around these three topics. Current R&D work is for instance dedicated to gamma and neutron spectro-imaging, design of analytical microsystems, muography for imaging large infrastructure, embedded algorithms for 3D localization, cyanobacteria for the processing of liquid wastes or radiotactic colloids playing the role of decontamination nanorobots.