Iranian Entity: Esfahan (Isfahan) Nuclear Technology Center

According to the U.N. Security Council, a part of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran's (AEOI) Nuclear Fuel Production and Procurement Company (see separate entity records), which is involved in enrichment-related activities; listed by the Japanese government in 2008 as an entity of concern for proliferation relating to nuclear weapons; listed by the British government in 2008 as an entity of potential concern for WMD-related procurement; on August 12, 2008, added to the Specially Designated National (SDN) list maintained by the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), freezing its assets under U.S. jurisdiction and prohibiting transactions with U.S. parties, pursuant to Executive Order 13382, which targets proliferators of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and their delivery systems; listed in an annex to U.N. Security Council resolution 1747 of March 24, 2007, as an entity involved in Iran's nuclear or ballistic missile activities; resolution 1747 lists ENTC and NFRPC together as part of the AEOI's Nuclear Fuel Production and Procurement Company; with some exceptions, the U.N. designation requires states to freeze the financial assets on their territories which are owned or controlled by the entity, by its agents, or by entities it controls; the U.N. designation also requires states to ensure that funds, financial assets or economic resources are prevented from being made available by their nationals or by any persons or entities within their territories, to or for the benefit of the entity; listed by the European Union on April 21, 2007, pursuant to U.N. Security Council Resolution 1747, as an entity whose funds and economic resources, and those it owns, holds or controls, must be frozen by E.U. member states, with some exceptions, and within their jurisdiction; E.U. member states must also ensure that funds or economic resources are not made available to or for the benefit of the listed entity; listed in an early warning document distributed by the German government to industry in July 2005 as a mainly civilian institution which also conducts military research and development, posing a risk of scientific facilities being misused as cover addresses for military imports; identified by the British government in February 1998, as having procured goods and/or technology for weapons of mass destruction programs, in "addition to doing non-proliferation related business."

Established in the mid-1970s with help from France to provide training, technical and scientific support for the Bushehr reactor project; according to Iranian officials, location of laboratory and bench scale uranium conversion experiments between 1981 and 1993; from 1983 to 1987 conducted experiments using 49.6 kg of imported uranium ore concentrate (UOC) to produce 36 kg of ammonium diuranate (ADU); from 1985 to 1987, used 34 kg of ADU to produce 28 kg of UO2, of which 12 kg were used in subsequent experiments; from 1986 to 1987 approximately 5.5 kg of imported UOC were used to produce 7 kg of AUC; produced depleted UO2 targets using 6.9 kg UO2 (previously declared as process loss) for irradiation at the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR); houses a 30-kilowatt Miniature Neutron Source Reactor for the production of short lived radioisotopes, (reportedly Chinese-supplied), Light Water Sub-Critical Reactor (LWSCR), Heavy Water Zero Power Reactor (HWZPR), (installed with the supervision of Chinese experts), Fuel Fabrication Laboratory (FFL), Uranium Chemistry Laboratory (UCL), Uranium Conversion Facility (UCF), Zirconium Production Plant (ZPP) (see separate entity records), and Graphite Sub-Critical Reactor (GSCR); the UCL and GSCR have been shut down; also houses dismantled equipment, including three glove boxes, used in plutonium separation experiments between 1988 and 1992 at the Tehran Nuclear Research Center (TNRC - see separate entity record); during International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) visits in November and December 2003, environmental samples were taken from the dismantled glove boxes; visited again between January 10-28, 2004; results of environmental samples were presented by the IAEA to Iran on April 27, 2004; reportedly slated to receive hundreds of tons of anhydrous hydrogen fluoride (AHF or hydrofluoric acid), used as feeder material for refining uranium yellowcake into gaseous form, from the China Nuclear Energy Industrial Corporation (CNEIC - see separate entity record), but delivery was blocked by United States diplomatic efforts; construction of a fuel manufacturing plant (FMP) began in 2004; as of May 2008, the pellet production process for heavy water reactor fuel at the FMP was close to completion, but the fuel rod production and fuel assembling processes were missing some equipment; the stated purpose of this FMP is fabrication of fuel assemblies for the IR-40 heavy water research reactor at Arak and for the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant; Pishgam Energy Industries Development Co. (PEI - see separate entity record), the AEOI's main engineering consulting company, contributed to the ZPP, UCF and FMP.

Sub-units/departments include:
Uranium Conversion Facility (UCF): operating since 2005, produces uranium compounds needed for fuel cycle activities.
Electronics and Control Department: Design and manufacturing of special electronic, and instrumentation and control equipment; design and manufacturing of printed circuit boards (PCBs), inductors and transformers.
Metallurgical Engineering and Fuel Department: Research on life prediction and management in nuclear power plants, corrosion and corrosion protection in the nuclear fuel cycle, thermal stability of uranium dioxide (UO2) pellets, experimental production of nuclear fuel for VVER reactors, production of safety and control rods for zero power reactors; equipped with an optical microscope, a scanning electronic microscope, vacuum furnaces, controlled atmosphere furnaces, static and dynamic autoclaves, sintering furnaces, and milling and grinding machines; oversees the Fuel Fabrication Laboratories (FFL).
Nuclear Engineering Department: laboratories provide support for nuclear engineering.
Chemistry Department: laboratory equipment includes spectrophotometer, atomic absorption equipment and atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP); projects include production of UO2 from concentrated U3O8, production of hydrogen fluoride and production of tri-butyl phosphate.
Health Physics and Waste Management Department: activities include consultation in designing radioactive laboratories, radiation dosimetry, shielding calculation of radioactive laboratories, waste management activities and environmental analysis.
Miniature Reactor Department: houses Miniature Neutron Source Reactor, which is used for neutron activation analysis and the production of short-lived radioisotopes.

According to the European Union, Esfahan Nuclear Technology Centre is headed by Dr. Javad Rahiqi (see separate entity record); according to the U.N. Security Council, Esfahan Nuclear Fuel Research and Production Centre is headed by Amir Rahimi (see separate entity record).