Immobilisation process for contaminated zeolitic ion exchangers from Fukushima. Issue 62 (16th February 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Pletser, D.; Chinnam, R. K.; Kamoshida, M.; Lee, W.E.
• Is Part Of: MRS advances. Volume 1:Issue 62(2016)
• Page Start: 4089
• Page End: 4094
• Publication Date: 2017-02-16
• Subjects: sintering, -- nuclear materials, -- zeolite; Electrical engineering -- Congresses; Physics -- Congresses; Materials -- Research -- Congresses; Materials science -- Congresses; 620.11
• DOI: 10.1557/adv.2017.194
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2059-8521

Abstract

Abstract: The clean-up of the Fukushima Daiichi site, after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, continues to generate large amounts of spent adsorbents. These adsorbents need to be disposed of permanently in a low temperature immobilisation process to avoid volatilising radioactive Cs and Sr species. To this end an immobilisation process with a maximum temperature of 600 °C was developed by sintering model waste with glass frit to form a dense Glass Composite Material (GCM) wasteform. A zeolitic model wasteform, chabazite, was sintered with a lead borosilicate glass composition at a maximum temperature of 600 °C. The sintering process was optimised with various thermal treatment steps to ensure that volatile species, aqueous or otherwise, were released before full sintering to yield a dense final wasteform. With this process dense wasteforms of up to 40 wt. % chabazite have been achieved.