Editors' Choice—Review—Electro-Kinetic Decontamination of Radioactive Concrete Waste from Nuclear Power Plants

Chanyoung Kim,Myoungsu Shin,Sungyeol Choi

doi:10.1149/2.0281809jes

Abstract

Electro-kinetic decontamination has been studied for radioactive concrete of nuclear power plants because of its effective removal of contaminants from deep inside concrete. Although many experiments have been conducted, a systematic comparison has been scarcely conducted. By a thorough review, this study reveals how different conditions of electro-kinetic decontamination changes the decontamination ratio and rate of Cs and Co. The tested conditions include cell configurations (i.e., geometry of concrete waste, electrode materials, and volume of solutions) and operating conditions (i.e., types and concentrations of solutions, electric field, and test duration). The careful analysis suggests the important roles of pH in electrolytic solution, electric field, and pre-treatment. We also discuss the chemical conditions under which the decontamination of Cs and Co was optimized in the presence of an applied voltage. In addition, we critically review the conditions of simulated concrete samples in the previous experiments in comparison with actual nuclear plant data.

Highlights

Reducing the hazardous risks to which the public and the environment would be exposed requires the decontamination of radioactive concrete, the confinement of radioactive isotopes to small volumes, and the use of suitable waste forms for the isolated isotopes.[1]
The amount of radioactive concrete waste generated around the world is expected to increase because a number of nuclear power plants (NPPs) among the over 440 NPPs in operation are scheduled for closure and decommissioning within a few decades.[8,9,10]
The characteristics of radioactive concrete waste from NPPs are explored (Radioactive Concrete from Decommissioning of Nuclear Power Plants section), the principles of electro-kinetics in porous media are reviewed (Principles and Cell Setups of Electro-Kinetic Decontamination section), and the contamination methods used for the simulation of concrete samples in the previous studies are discussed (Specimen Contamination Methods section)

Summary

Introduction

Reducing the hazardous risks to which the public and the environment would be exposed requires the decontamination of radioactive concrete, the confinement of radioactive isotopes to small volumes, and the use of suitable waste forms for the isolated isotopes.[1]. Previous electro-kinetic experiments tested various cell configurations (i.e., the geometry of concrete waste, electrode materials, and volume of solutions) and operating conditions (i.e., types and concentration of solutions, applied voltage, and test duration).[34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,43,44,45,46] none of the reported studies have tried to compare the results of the previous tests under different conditions to provide a comprehensive review. The characteristics of radioactive concrete waste from NPPs are explored (Radioactive Concrete from Decommissioning of Nuclear Power Plants section), the principles of electro-kinetics in porous media are reviewed (Principles and Cell Setups of Electro-Kinetic Decontamination section), and the contamination methods used for the simulation of concrete samples in the previous studies are discussed (Specimen Contamination Methods section)

Methods

Results

Conclusion