• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.179-186
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• 2006

Chemical wastes are generated from nuclear facilities and R&D laboratories, but the uranium concentration in the final dried cake is evaluated into 11.2 Bq/g, which exceeds the exemption level of 10 Bq/g for each U isotopes, so the cake is categorized into a radioactive waste. Acid dissolution was applied to extract uranium from the waste sludge, and uranium adsorption on the dissolved solution was experimented by using IRN-77 and Diphosil bead. A large amount of resin was required to get above 80% of uranium removal, which was found to be due to a large amount of metal ions simultaneously dissolved from the precipitates with uranium. As an alternative method, acid dissolution is applied to the dewatered wet cake of the sludge, and the natural evaporation method is adopted for the dissolved solution. The uranium concentration of the dissolved solution was estimated to be 6.97E-01 Bq/ml, and the specific activity of the final waste sheets is evaluated to be 4.3 Bq/g. These results lead to the suggestion that the application of acid dissolution to the wet cake and the natural evaporation for the dissolved solution is an effective treatment method for chemical wastes containing uranium.

• Analytical Science and Technology
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.519-523
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• 2009

$^{129}I$ is especially one of the most harmful radioactive elements because of its long half-life ($t_{1/2}$=$1.7{\times}10^7$ yr). The efficient removal of iodide ($I^-$) and iodate (${IO_3}^-$) in a aqueous solution by adsorption using activated alumina and activated carbon was studied. The removal efficiency was over 99% for iodide ion with silver treated basic alumina and iodate ion with acidic alumina or silver treated acidic alumina without any chemical addition or physical treatments.

• Proceedings of the Korean Radioactive Waste Society Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.111-111
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• 2005

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.59-73
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• 2019

A decontamination technology for radioactive liquid wastes was newly developed and hypothetically applied to the liquid waste management system (LWMS) of the nuclear power plant (NPP) to evaluate its decontamination efficacy for the purpose of the fundamental reduction of spent resins. The basic principle of the developed technology is to convert major radionuclide ions in the liquid wastes into inorganic crystal minerals via chemical or biological techniques. In a laboratory batch experiment, the biological method selectively removed more than 80% of cesium within 24 hours, and the chemical method removed more than 95% of cesium. Other major nuclides (Co, Ni, Fe, Cr, Mn, Eu), which are commonly present in nuclear radioactive liquid wastes, were effectively scavenged by more than 99%. We have designed a module including the new technology that could be hypothetically installed between the reverse osmosis (R/O) package and the organic ion-exchange resin in the LWMS of the APR1400 reactor. From a technical evaluation for the virtual installation, we found that more than 90% of major radionuclides in the radioactive liquid wastes were selectively removed, resulting in a large volume reduction of spent resins. This means that if the new technology is commercialized in the future, it could possibly provide drastic cost reduction and significant extension of the life of resins in the management of spent resins, consequently leading to delay the saturation time of the Wolsong repository.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.51 no.2
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• pp.177-183
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• 2018

This study assessed an application of electrocoagulation (EC) for the removal of cobalt (Co) in radioactive liquid waste from nuclear power plant. The EC process is an electrochemical means to remove a contaminant in wastewater and a novel process to complement the disadvantage of chemical treatment and membrane process. Radioactive liquid waste has been produced from washing process of radio nuclide power plant cooling system. The EC process eliminates Co from the electrolyte within 10 min; in addition, the dewatered sludge produced in EC process is only 0.2 g. Therefore, the EC process is a promising technique for the removal of Co in radioactive liquid waste and volume reduction of wastes.

• Proceedings of the Korean Radioactive Waste Society Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.60-70
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• 2003

The stability of various waste forms to meet waste acceptance criteria was evaluated by using standard test methods of U.S.A and France. Compressive strength of waste forms were above 176.03 kgf/$\textrm{cm}^2$(cement), 15 kgf/$\textrm{cm}^2$(paraffin). In the thermal cycling test, there were no any change in their feature and volume, the loss of weight was 6.15% on the average. In the immersion test for 120 days, the loss of weight of paraffin waste form was 8.85-5.14% pH=3.83. The G-Value of $H_2$ and $CH_4$ in paraffin wax at $10^8rads$ rads of exposure dose were 2.65, 0.016.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.38 no.9
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• pp.839-845
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• 2001

In order to vitrify the Ion-Exchange Resin(IER), Dry Active Waste(DAW), and borate concentrate generated from the commercial nuclear facilities, the glass formulation study based on the their compositions was performed. Two glasses named as RG-1 and DG-1 were formulated as the candidate glasses for the vitrification of hte IER and DAW, respectively. A glass named as MG-1 was also formulated as a candidate glass for the vitrification of the mixed wastes containing the IER, DAW, and borate concentrate. The process parameters, product qualities, and economics were evaluated for the candidate glasses and confirmed experimentally for the some properties. The glass viscosity and electrical conductivity as the process parameters were in the desired ranges. the product qualities such as glass density, chemical durability, phase stability, etc. were satisfactory. In case of vitrifying the wastes using our developed glass formulation study, the volume reduction factors for the IER, DAW and mixed wastes were evaluated as 21, 89 and 75, respectively.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.52 no.2
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• pp.154-165
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• 2014

Development of unconventional natural resources such as shale gas, shale oil and coal bed methane, has been activated and improved the productivity due to the recent technology advance in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. However, the flowback water mixed with chemical additives, and the brine water containing oil, gas, high levels of salts and radioactive metals is produced during the gas production. Potential negative environmental impact due to large volumes of the produced wastewater is increasingly seen as the major obstacles to the unconventional natural resource development. In this study an integrated framework for the flowback and brine water treatment is proposed, and we reviewed the upcoming state of the art technology in water treatment. Basic separation processes which include not only membrane, evaporation, crystallization and desalination processes, but the potential water reuse and recycling techniques can be applied for the unconventional natural resource industry.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.50 no.5
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• pp.341-352
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• 2017

Along with Cs-137 (half-life: 30.17 years), Sr-90 (half-life: 28.8 years) is one of the most important environmental monitoring radioactive elements. Rapid and easy monitoring method for Sr-90 using Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) has been studied. Strontium belongs to a bivalent alkaline earth metal such as calcium and has similar electron arrangement and size. Due to these similar chemical properties, it can easily enter into the human body through the food chain via water, soil, and crops when leaked into the environment. In addition, it is immersed into the bone at the case of human influx and causes the toxicity for a long time (biological half-life: about 50 years). It is a very reductive and related with the specific reaction that makes wet analysis difficult. In particular, radioactive strontium should be monitored by nuclear power plants but it is very difficult to be analysed from high-cost problems as well as low accuracy of analysis due to complicated analysis procedures, expensive analysis equipment, and a pretreatment process of using massive chemicals. Therefore, we introduce the Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) analysis method that analyzes the elements in the sample using the inherent spectrum by generating plasma on the sample using pulse energy, and it can be analyzed in a few seconds without preprocessing. A variety of analytical plates for samples were developed to improve the analytical sensitivity by optimizing the laser, wavelength, and time resolution. This can be effectively applied to real-time monitoring of radioactive wastewater discharged from a nuclear power plant, and furthermore, it can be applied as an emergency monitoring means such as possible future accidents at a nuclear power plants.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.9-17
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• 2007

In order to compare the correlation of radioactivity ratio between the radwaste streams and the primary coolant of PWR NPPs, A RCS sampling kit was installed to primary coolant system for the collection of the radionuclides during the normal operation of NPPs. RCS samples were collected from PWR type of domestic NPPs through 2004 to 2005, and pretreated with acid microwave digestion or leaching method to assay quantitatively of several interesting radionuclides. The radioactivity ratios of $^{137}Cs\;to\;^{60}Co$ in a filter cartridge and a resin cartridge were 2.3E-2 and 7.3E-1, respectively. At a same period of the reactor operating cycle, the radioactivity ratios of $^{137}Cs\;to\;^{60}Co$ were 6.3E-1 for a evaporator bottom, 6.7E-1 for a spent resin, and 5.6E-2 for a dry active waste, so that these radwaste streams were identified as having similar characteristics with the corresponding RCS samples.