Upgrading of recovery method for radioactive microparticles by heavy liquid separation aiming to volume reduction of contaminated soil (Contract research); FY2020 Nuclear Energy Science & Technology and Human Resource Development Project

Collaborative Laboratories for Advanced Decommissioning Science; University of Tsukuba*

The Collaborative Laboratories for Advanced Decommissioning Science (CLADS), Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA), had been conducting the Nuclear Energy Science & Technology and Human Resource Development Project (hereafter referred to "the Project") in FY2020. The Project aims to contribute to solving problems in the nuclear energy field represented by the decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Inc. (TEPCO). For this purpose, intelligence was collected from all over the world, and basic research and human resource development were promoted by closely integrating/collaborating knowledge and experiences in various fields beyond the barrier of conventional organizations and research fields. The sponsor of the Project was moved from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology to JAEA since the newly adopted proposals in FY2018. On this occasion, JAEA constructed a new research system where JAEA-academia collaboration is reinforced and medium-to-long term research/development and human resource development contributing to the decommissioning are stably and consecutively implemented. Among the adopted proposals in FY2018, this report summarizes the research results of the "Upgrading of recovery method for radioactive microparticles by heavy liquid separation aiming to volume reduction of contaminated soil" conducted from FY2018 to FY2020. Since the final year of this proposal was FY2020, the results for three fiscal years were summarized. The present study aims to develop a novel method to reduce the volume of contaminated soil caused by an accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. The heavy liquid separation method, which was optimized in the previous year, was applied to nine soils collected in Fukushima Prefecture.