STUDY ON EXTRACTION FROM CESIUM IN CONTAMINATED SOIL PACKED IN FLEXIBLE CONTAINER BAG AND ADSORPTION USING RICE HUSK

Abstract

A large amount of radioactive cesium was diffused by the accident at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station. Most of the diffused radioactive cesium deposited on Fukushima soil, and most of the contaminated soil was recovered by the stripping work. The contaminated soil including the radioactive cesium is currently placed in a flexible container bag and stored in a temporary storage facility. In the future, the contaminated soil is going to be burned at the intermediate storage facility. However, the storage facilities are insufficient and a disposal method has an agenda. In order to solve these problems, it is demanded to reduce the contaminated soil by decreasing the dose of radioactive cesium in the contaminated soil. Therefore, in this study, the test equipment simulating the actual flexible container bag is primarily made. Secondly, the two methods are combined; one is the extraction method using the electrophoresis, and another is the adsorption method using an adsorbent in order to decrease the concentration of cesium included in the simulated contaminated soil. As the adsorbent, the rice husk is focused on. Its material cost is reasonable and it can be acquired in bulk. Two types of the electrophoresis test are carried out, one with the use of the rice husk and another with the use of zeolite. The test with the zeolite is positioned as a control test for the test with the rice husk. It is clarified that the adsorption effect of rice husk for cesium is similar to that of zeolite.