Development of the sintering solidification method for spent zeolite to long-term stabilization (Contract research); FY2020 Nuclear Energy Science & Technology and Human Resource Development Project

Collaborative Laboratories for Advanced Decommissioning Science; Shibaura Institute of Technology*

JAEA-Review 2022-008, 116 Pages, 2022/06

JAEA-Review-2022-008.pdf:5.36MB

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 "Development of the sintering solidification method for spent zeolite to long-term stabilization" conducted from FY2018 to FY2021 (this contract was extended to FY2021). Since the final year of this proposal was FY2021, the results for four fiscal years were summarized. The present study aims to develop a new sintering solidification method in which glass is added as a binder to spent zeolite which is adsorbed radionuclides such as Cs and the nuclides are immobilized by sintering them. In this project, the optimum conditions for sintering solidification and the basic performance of the sintered solidified body will be evaluated by cold tests, and they will be demonstrated by hot tests.

Development of the Sintering Solidification Method for Spent Zeolite to Long-term Stabilization (Contract research); FY2019 Nuclear Energy Science & Technology and Human Resource Development Project

Collaborative Laboratories for Advanced Decommissioning Science; Shibaura Institute of Technology*

JAEA-Review 2020-049, 78 Pages, 2021/01

JAEA-Review-2020-049.pdf:5.85MB

JAEA/CLADS had been conducting the Nuclear Energy Science & Technology and Human Resource Development Project. Among the adopted proposals in FY2018, this report summarizes the research results of the "Development of the Sintering Solidification Method for Spent Zeolite to Long-term Stabilization" conducted in FY2019.

Direct quantitation of Cs in spent Cs adsorbent used for the decontamination of radiocesium-containing water by laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry

Asai, Shiho*; Ohata, Masaki*; Hanzawa, Yukiko; Horita, Takuma; Yomogida, Takumi; Kitatsuji, Yoshihiro

Analytical Chemistry, 92(4), p.3276 - 3284, 2020/02

https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.analchem.9b05161

The long-term safety assessment of spent Cs adsorbents produced during the decontamination of radiocesium-containing water at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant requires one to estimate their Cs content prior to final disposal. Cs is usually quantified by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), which necessitates the elution of Cs from Cs adsorbents. However, this approach suffers from the high radiation dose from Cs. To address this challenge, we herein employed laser ablation ICP-MS for direct quantitation of Cs in Cs adsorbents and used a model Cs adsorbent prepared by immersion of a commercially available Cs adsorbent into radiocesium-containing liquid waste to verify the developed technique. The use of the Cs/Cs ratio and Cs radioactivity obtained by gamma spectrometry achieved simple and precise quantitation of Cs and the resulting Cs activity of 0.36 Bq agreed well with that in the original radiocesium-containing liquid waste.

Effect of flowing water on Sr sorption changes of hydrous sodium titanate

Takahatake, Yoko; Shibata, Atsuhiro; Nomura, Kazunori; Sato, Tsutomu*

Minerals (Internet), 7(12), p.247_1 - 247_13, 2017/12

https://doi.org/10.3390/min7120247

Hydrous sodium titanate (SrTreat) is able to remove radioactive Sr from Radioactive contaminated water at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power station (F1NPS). Knowing the amount of radioactive nuclides in the used SrTreat is important for an effective disposal and deposition of the F1NPS waste. This study investigated changes in the ability of SrTreat to sorb Sr during its use, and to understand the causes of changes in the sorbing. After exposure to a simulated treated water for 99 h, the surface structure of the SrTreat was changed, and the percentage of sorbed Sr and the buffer capacity for protons decreased. When the amount of radioactive nuclides contained in the used SrTreat is calculated from the sorption data of the as received SrTreat.

Groundwater flow modeling focused on the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant site

Saegusa, Hiromitsu; Onoe, Hironori; Kohashi, Akio; Watanabe, Masahisa

Proceedings of 23rd International Conference on Nuclear Engineering (ICONE-23) (DVD-ROM), 7 Pages, 2015/05

Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant of Tokyo Electric Power Company is facing contaminated water issues. The amount of contaminated water is continuously increasing due to groundwater leakage into the underground part of reactor and turbine buildings. Therefore, it is important to understand the groundwater flow conditions at the site and to predict the impact of countermeasures taken for isolating groundwater from the source of the contamination, i.e. the reactor buildings. Installations, such as of land-side and sea-side impermeable walls have been planned as countermeasures. In this study, groundwater flow modeling has been performed to estimate the response of groundwater flow conditions to the countermeasures. From the modeling, groundwater conditions and changes in response to implementation of the countermeasures could be reasonably estimated. The results indicate that the countermeasures will decrease the volume of inflow into underground part of the buildings. This means that the countermeasures will be effective in reducing the discharge volume of contaminated groundwater to ocean.

Application of coupling simulation of atmospheric, terrestrial, and oceanic transport models to predict the environmental transport of radioactive materials discharged from the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant, 2

Nagai, Haruyasu; Tsuzuki, Katsunori; Kobayashi, Takuya; Terada, Hiroaki

no journal, , 

no abstracts in English

Direct measurement of Cs in Cs adsorbent used for water decontamination by laser-ablation ICP-MS

Asai, Shiho*; Ohata, Masaki*; Hanzawa, Yukiko; Horita, Takuma; Yomogida, Takumi; Kitatsuji, Yoshihiro

no journal, , 

A large amount of spent Cs adsorbents used for decontaminating water in Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station are stored in the site. To dispose them safely, the estimation of Cs activity along with that of Cs is indispensable. Cs is generally measured by ICP-MS, which required the sample to be prepared in liquid form and thus the elution of Cs from the Cs adsorbents is essential. However, this approach suffers from the high radiation dose from Cs. In this study, we quantified Cs in a Cs adsorbent using the Cs/Cs ratio obtained by LA-ICP-MS and Cs radioactivity obtained by gamma spectrometry. To evaluate the applicability, we employed a Cs -containing water sample to prepare a model spent Cs adsorbent with a certified Cs activity. The resulting Cs activity of 0.36 Bq calculated by Cs /Cs ratio of 0.41 0.02 and Cs activity agreed well with that of the originally determined Cs activity in the model spent Cs adsorbent, demonstrating that the proposed technique has high validity to Cs determination of a real sample.