Hydrogen production in radiolysis of mixtures of zeolite and seawater

Kumagai, Yuta   ; Nagaishi, Ryuji ; Kimura, Atsushi; Taguchi, Mitsumasa; Nishihara, Kenji  ; Yamagishi, Isao ; Ogawa, Toru

In the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, zeolite is used for decontamination of radioactive water as an adsorbent for radioactive Cs. During the process and the storage of the waste zeolite after the process, the management of hydrogen produced by water radiolysis is an important issue of safety. Thus hydrogen production from the mixture of zeolite and seawater was studied because the radioactive water contains salts from seawater. The hydrogen production from the mixture was decreased monotonically with decreasing weight fraction of seawater. However, the measured yield of hydrogen was higher than the yield expected from the direct radiolysis of water in the mixture. This result shows an additional production of hydrogen as an influence of zeolite. Moreover, dilution of seawater became less effective on the inhibition of hydrogen production with increasing weight fraction of zeolite, although it effectively decreased the hydrogen production in the absence of zeolite.