Radioactivity of waste materials coming from the largest power plants in Poland

Aneta Łukaszek-Chmielewska,Robert Godlewski,Krzysztof Isajenko,Olga Stawarz,Karol Wojtkowski,Martin Girard,Barbara Piotrowska,B Kaźmierczak,P Jadwiszczak,U Miller,M Kutyłowska

doi:10.1051/e3sconf/201910000051

Abstract

The Central Laboratory of Radiological Protection together with 30 other laboratories in Poland is involved in the analysis of radioactivity among indirect products of combustion (ashes and slags) coming from polish power plants and thermal power station. Systematic studies are conducted on the concentrations of natural radioactive isotopes in waste materials obtained from the power industry, and their results are recorded in a database. This database is supervised by the Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection. The database already contains 46300 by now and the oldest results come from the eighties. In this article the results of studies on radioactive concentration of natural radioisotopes 40K, 226Ra and 228Th in waste materials coming from the largest power plants in our country are presented. Furthermore an analysis was carried out on the possibility to use the selected waste materials (ashes and slags) in housing construction, road construction and in public facilities buildings, considering the values of activity indexes f1 and f2.

Highlights

The largest power plants active in Poland are: Bełchatów (5354 MW), Kozienice (2193 MW), Turów (2106 MW), Połaniec (1800 MW), Rybnik (1775 MW), Jaworzno III (1535 MW), Opole (1492 MW), Dolna Odra (1362 MW) and Łaziska (1155 MW) [1].The main task of those power plants is the production of electric and thermal energy through the combustion of hard coal or lignite.As a result of the coal combustion, energetic waste called indirect products of combustion (UPS) are produced such as: slags, fly ashes, ash-slag mixtures, microspheres, etc
And 2, we present the mean values and ranges of radioactive concentration in ash and slag samples coming from the largest power plants in Poland during the years 1980–2015 for the following radioactive natural isotopes: potassium (40K), radium (226Ra) and thorium (228Th)
Analyzing the values of all indexes, both the ones giving information about the exposure of human body to gamma radiation emitted by natural radionuclide like 40K, 226Ra and 228Th, defined by f1, and the ones describing the degree of exposure to alpha radiation coming from radon, defined by f2, it can be stated that the slag samples are characterized by much lower values of activity indexes f1 and f2 comparing to ash samples

Summary

Introduction

The largest power plants active in Poland are: Bełchatów (5354 MW), Kozienice (2193 MW), Turów (2106 MW), Połaniec (1800 MW), Rybnik (1775 MW), Jaworzno III (1535 MW), Opole (1492 MW), Dolna Odra (1362 MW) and Łaziska (1155 MW) [1].The main task of those power plants is the production of electric and thermal energy through the combustion of hard coal or lignite.As a result of the coal combustion, energetic waste called indirect products of combustion (UPS) are produced such as: slags, fly ashes, ash-slag mixtures, microspheres, etc. The largest power plants active in Poland are: Bełchatów (5354 MW), Kozienice (2193 MW), Turów (2106 MW), Połaniec (1800 MW), Rybnik (1775 MW), Jaworzno III (1535 MW), Opole (1492 MW), Dolna Odra (1362 MW) and Łaziska (1155 MW) [1]. The main task of those power plants is the production of electric and thermal energy through the combustion of hard coal or lignite. As a result of the coal combustion, energetic waste called indirect products of combustion (UPS) are produced such as: slags, fly ashes, ash-slag mixtures, microspheres, etc. About 24 million tons of such waste is produced annually [2].

Methods

Results

Conclusion