Development of cesium-free mineralization for decontamination and reuse of radioactive contaminated soil in Fukushima

Shimoyama, Iwao   ; Honda, Mitsunori   ; Kogure, Toshihiro*; Baba, Yuji  ; Hirao, Norie*; Okamoto, Yoshihiro  ; Yaita, Tsuyoshi; Suzuki, Shinichi

We introduce Cs-free mineralization (CFM) for Cs removal and reuse of radioactive-contaminated soil in Fukushima and report recent work conducted in the BL27A beamline in Photon Factory. In this work, we investigated compositional and structural changes of Cs-sorbed weathered biotite (WB) before and after heating treatment with addition of NaCl-CaCl salts under low-pressure condition, to study Cs desorption mechanism from clay minerals. X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy clarified that almost all Cs and K were removed with the salts at 700 C. On the other hand, Ca increased with heating temperature. X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy analysis clarified that phase transitions from WB to some Ca-rich silicate minerals, e.g., augite, were caused by the heating treatment with the salt. Based on these results, CFM is proposed for Cs removal utilizing the mechanism in which large monovalent cations are discharged with accompanying the phase transition. We also discuss the role of Cl in this reaction showing chemical bonding change of Cl observed using X-ray absorption spectroscopy in the early stage of the chemical reaction.