Abstract
Cementation of radioactive waste arising from nuclear facility operation and decommissioning is a common approach for its encapsulation, solidification, and disposal. Cementation offers significant advantages over other waste conditioning routes, such as thermal conversion of the waste to form ceramics or glasses including simplicity, relatively high throughput, low cost, and minimal secondary waste generation. In particular, cementation has been investigated for stabilization/solidification (S/S) of problematic radioactive wastes. Traditionally, many radioactive waste streams have been encapsulated and solidified in Portland cement (PC); however, modern cement technologies utilizing alternative binders or supplementary cementitious materials (SCM) can exhibit many desirable properties for S/S methods. These may include enhanced chemical resistance in aggressive environments, enhanced chemical tolerance to problematic and complex waste streams, higher fluidity leading to potentially higher waste loadings and/or simplified cementation process routes, and resilience against security of supply issues. This chapter provides an overview of current cement technologies for S/S of radioactive waste, as well as emerging cement technologies, industry perspectives, and future directions. This includes discussion of the chemistry and engineering properties of PC, PC blended with SCM, calcium sulfoaluminate-based cements, magnesia-based cements, alkali-activated and geopolymer cements, and their application in S/S of radioactive waste.
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