Aging of fuel-containing materials (fuel debris) in the Chornobyl (Chernobyl) Nuclear Power Plant and its implication for the decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station

Kitagaki, Toru  ; Krasnov, V.*; Ikeda, Atsushi  

Nuclear fuel debris is a complex material containing a wide range of elements, compounds, and radiation. This complexity renders all the stages of the treatment of nuclear fuel debris extremely difficult and troublesome in the technical context. The whole treatment of nuclear fuel debris is also an extremely long-term process for tens of thousands of years, during which the aging of nuclear fuel debris is an unavoidable but critical issue. This applies to the decommissioning of the damaged reactors of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (1F). This review article aims at collecting and summarizing the knowledge and information about the aging of materials containing nuclear fuels (fuel-containing materials) formed as a result of the accident at ChNPP-4 in the light of the decommissioning of 1F and assessing the potential effects of aging on the nuclear fuel debris remaining in the damaged 1F reactors.