Approaches to rehabilitation of radioactive contaminated territories

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Accidents at nuclear fuel cycle plants may lead to contamination of areas of land and water. Cheap and available sorbents including natural aluminosilicates can be used for rehabilitation and decontamination of large volumes of radioactively contaminated water, including drinking water, prevention of migration of radionuclides into ground and surface waters through the soil and returning contaminated soil to farming. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: A comparative study of sorption properties of various natural and surface-modified aluminosilicates with respect to caesium is made. It is shown that sorption features of surface-modified aluminosilicates for Cs were improved by 100-1000 times compared with respective natural aluminosilicates. It is shown that surface modification of glauconite by a mixed nickel-potassium ferrocyanide phase allows it to considerably increase its specificity (caesium distribution coefficients (2.9 ± 0.8)Ч103 mL g-1 for natural and (4.5 ± 0.5)Ч105 mL g-1 for modified glauconite) as well as making it selective to caesium in the presence of other alkaline ions and also provides irreversible caesium sorption. CONCLUSIONS: Due to improved features, modified aluminosilicates can be more successful than natural ones when used for rehabilitation of radioactive contaminated territories (including agriculture) and water areas, as well as for decontamination of liquid radioactive wastes and for creation of geochemical barriers in solid radioactive waste storage. © 2013 Society of Chemical Industry.