• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.333-359
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• 2021

Gases such as hydrogen and radon can be generated around the canister in high-level radioactive waste disposal systems due to several reasons including the corrosion of metal materials. When the gas generation rate exceeds the gas diffusion rate in the low-permeability bentonite buffer, the gas phase will form and accumulate in the engineered barrier system. If the gas pressure exceeds the gas entry pressure, gas can migrate into the bentonite buffer, resulting in pathway dilation flow and advective flow. Because a sudden occurrence of dilation flow can cause radionuclide leakage out of the engineered barrier of the radioactive waste disposal system, it is necessary to understand the gas migration behavior in the bentonite buffer to quantitatively evaluate the long-term safety of the engineered barrier. Experimental research investigating the characteristics of gas migration in saturated bentonite and research developing numerical models capable of simulating such behaviors are being actively conducted worldwide. In this technical note, previous gas injection experiments and the numerical models proposed to verify such behaviors are introduced, and the future challenges necessary for the investigation of gas migration are summarized.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.17-23
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• 2008

In this study, plasma processing of metal surface is experimentally investigated to enhance the surface decontamination efficiency and to find out the reaction mechanism. Cobalt, the major contaminant in the nuclear facilities, and three fluorine-containing gases, $CF_4/O_2$, $SF_6/O_2$, and $NF_3$ are chosen for the investigation. Thin metallic disk specimens are prepared and their surface etching reactions with the three plasma gases are examined. Results show that the maximum etching rate of $17.2\;{\mu}m/min.$ is obtained with NF3 gas at $420^{\circ}C$, while with $CF_4/O_2$, $SF_6/O_2$ gas plasmas those of $2.56\;{\mu}m/min.$ and $1.14\;{\mu}m/min.$ are obtained, respectively. Along with etching experiments, constituent elements of the reaction products are identified to be cobalt, oxygen, and fluorine by AES (Auger Electron Spectroscopy) analysis. It turns out that the oxygen atoms are physically adsorbed ones to the surface from the ambient not participation ones during the analysis after reaction, which supports that the surface reaction of cobalt is mainly to be a fluorination reaction.

• The Journal of Natural Sciences
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.67-75
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• 1992

In the our country, especially in Yeongil and Wolsung area, abundant authigenic zeolites are found from the tuffaceous sediments and volcanic rocks of Miocene age showing wide variation in their mineralogy and abundance from horizon to horizon. The principal zeolite species identified are clinopti-lolite. mordenite. heulandite. ferrierite, and erionite. etc. Zeolite minerals are widely used in many countries in the following applications; (a) in air separation adsorption processes; (b)as desiccants; (c)in inorganic building materials; (d)in papermaking; (e)in fertilizers; (f)as soilconditioners-this application is based upon the ability of the zeolite to ion exchange with soil nutrients; (g)in the treatment of radioactive wastes; and (h)as adsorbents for toxic gases, etc. In the present paper, using natural zeolite mordenite treated with IN hydrochloric acid or IN sodium chloride solution as column packings, separation characteristics of argon, nitrogen, carbon monoxide, and methane gases have been studied by gas chromatography. By the use of mordenite treated with hydrochloric acid solution, the tailing peak of methane showed from untreated mordenite was satisfactorily reduced, although it was difficult to separate it from carbon monoxide with a column activated at $300^{\circ}C$. Using a column activated at $350^{\circ}C$, methane could be separated from carbon monoxide easily but only carbon monoxide eluted as a bad defined peak. Mordenite treated with sodium chloride solution was generally similar to chromatograms obtained by using the untreated mordenite. Both the above chemical treatments of mordenite had little effect on the separations of argon and nitrogen. The separations and the HETP values obtained from natural zeolite mordenite treated with continuously hydrochloric acid and sodium chloride solutions were almost identical with those obtained with synthetic molecular sieve 5A zeolite. On the other hand, the efficiency of column was good in the range 20~3Oml/min of the carrier helium gas rate.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.114-129
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• 2017

Background: The purpose of this paper is to confirm the event timings and the magnitude of fission product aerosol release from the Fukushima accident. Over a few hundreds of technical papers have been published on the environmental impact of Fukushima Daiichi accident since the accident occurred on March 11, 2011. However, most of the research used reverse or inverse method based on the monitoring of activities in the remote places and only few papers attempted to estimate the release of fission products from individual reactor core or from individual spent fuel pool. Severe accident analysis code can be used to estimate the radioactive release from which reactor core and from which radionuclide the peaks in monitoring points can be generated. Materials and Methods: The basic material used for this study are the initial core inventory obtained from the report JAEA-Data/Code 2012-018 and the given accident scenarios provided by Japanese Government or Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) in official reports. In this research a forward method using severe accident progression code is used as it might be useful for justifying the results of reverse or inverse method or vice versa. Results and Discussion: The release timing and amounts to the environment are estimated for volatile radioactive fission products such as noble gases, cesium, iodine, and tellurium up to 184 hours (about 7.7 days) after earthquake occurs. The in-plant fission product behaviors and release characteristics to environment are estimated using the severe accident progression analysis code, MELCOR, for Fukushima Daiichi accident. These results are compared with other research results which are summarized in UNSCEAR 2013 Report and other technical papers. Also it may provide the physically based arguments for justifying or suspecting the rationale for the scenarios provided in open literature. Conclusion: The estimated results by MELCOR code simulation of this study indicate that the release amount of volatile fission products to environment from Units 1, 2, and 3 cores is well within the range estimated by the reverse or inverse method, which are summarized in UNSCEAR 2013 report. But this does not necessarily mean that these two approaches are consistent.

• Mass Spectrometry Letters
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2011

China's rapid economic growth has resulted in significant environmental side effects. Therefore, China has been interested in reducing her dependence on foreign oil and gas by developing technologies needed for hydrogen, in addition to her increasing energy mix of nuclear and renewable energy form, such as solar and wind power. There are three isotopes of hydrogen, i.e. protium (P or H), deuterium (D), and tritium (T). Both deuterium and tritium are important materials in nuclear fuel cycle industry. Tritium is one of the critical radioactive nuclides. Planning for and implementing contamination control as a part of normal operation and maintenance activities is an important function in any hydrogen facility, especially tritium facility. The development of hydrogen isotopes analysis is the key issues in this area. Mass spectrometry (MS) with medium (about 600) and high resolution (> 1,400) is commercially available; however, the routine analysis of hydrogen isotopes is done with low-resolution MS (< 200) in China. This paper summarizes the progress of MS measurement technology for hydrogen isotope abundance in China, focusing on our lab's research program and technical status. An analyzing method has been introduced for accurate measurement of tritium abundance in the H.D.T system by low resolution MAT-253 MS. The quotient of compression ratio coefficient is determined by building up equipment for laboratory-scale preparation of secondary standard gases and by considering the difference in sensitivity between hydrogen isotopes. The results show that the measured value is reproducible within the relative error range of 0.8% for gas samples of different tritium abundance.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.117-123
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• 2016

Glass wool is a material that has been used as a heat insulator in various fields including construction industry. Since it is a nonflammable material, it does not generate toxic gases on fire, and thus public agencies recommend using glass wool as a heat insulator instead of other organic materials. However, repeated drying and wetting cycles can deteriorate thermal property of glass wool due to the shrinkage and reduction in pore size. For this reason, it needs to be replaced periodically, and waste materials are generated. This research aims to utilize waste glass wool as additives for increasing mechanical properties of concrete. According to the experimental results, it was found that glass wool has weak pozzolanic activity, and beneficial effect on both compressive and flexural strength. The optimum amount found in this experimental work was 0.5% volumetric addition to the concrete.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.33-42
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• 1989

Nowadays, nuclear power production plays a principal role in the electrical energy supply. However, a nuclear power plants emit small amounts of radio-activity due to mostly fission product gases to the local environment during their normal operation. They may release considerably more radioactivity when accidents occur. It is quite necessary to be able to calculate the radiation doses to the general public from such radioactivity releases in order to evaluate the environmental impact of the normally operating nuclear power plant, to assure that this is within acceptable radiation standards, and to ascertain the radiological consequences of nuclear reactor accidents. Such computations also play an important role in determining the acceptability of a proposed nuclear reactor site. Before radiation dose calculations can be carried out, therefore, it is necessary to determine how the concentration of the radioactive effluents is distributed in the environment following their emissions into the atmosphere. This matter is considered and radiation dose calculations are mentioned in conclusions.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.1
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• pp.169-179
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• 2023

Filtered containment system is a passive safety system that controls the over-pressurization of containment in case of a design-based accidents by venting high pressure gaseous mixture, consisting of air, steam and radioactive particulate and gases like iodine, via a scrubbing system. An indigenous lab scale facility was developed for research on iodine removal by venturi scrubber by simulating the accidental scenario. A mixture of 0.2 % sodium thiosulphate and 0.5 % sodium hydroxide, was used in scrubbing column. A modified mathematical model was presented for iodine removal in venturi scrubber. Improvement in model was made by addition of important parameters like jet penetration length, bubble rise velocity and gas holdup which were not considered previously. Experiments were performed by varying hydrodynamic parameters like liquid level height and gas flow rates to see their effect on removal efficiency of iodine. Gas holdup was also measured for various liquid level heights and gas flowrates. Removal efficiency increased with increase in liquid level height and gas flowrate up to an optimum point beyond that efficiency was decreased. Experimental results of removal efficiency were compared with the predicted results, and they were found to be in good agreement. Maximum removal efficiency of 99.8% was obtained.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.237-243
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• 1990

Pulmonary embolism demands rapid and accurate diagnosis. And ventilation imaging has greatly improved the diagnostic accuracy of pulmonary embolism in addition to perfusion imaging. Agents currently used include xenon-133, krypton-81m and technetium-99m radioaerosols. However radioactive gases are compromised by availability and cost for krypton-81m, radiation dose, gamma energy and non?physiologic behaviour for xenon-133. Radioaerosols of technetium-99m componds are rapidly cleared from the lung after inhalation, and their relative low effeciency (specific radioactivity) and wide distribution of particle sizes make them also suboptimum. A new ventilation agent, Technegas is a suspension of structured graphite ellipsoids with diameter below 20nm, labelled with $^{99m}Tc$ in a carrier gas of Argon. This report describes the authors' clinical experience with Technegas. This is the first reported clinical study of this agent in Korea. A comparison of Technegas and $^{99m}Tc-DTPA$ aerosol was performed in 12 patients with various pulmonary diseases such as COPD, pulmonary tuberculosis and pleural effusion. All patients were studied with $^{99m}Tc-DTPA$ aerosol inhalation and Technegas ventilation. In both studies image quality was assessed (1) semiquantitatively by scoring bronchial and gastric activity, (2) subjectively by direct visual comparison of peripheral lung images and (3) quantitatively by computing the peripheral penetration index(PI) for each lungs. The bronchial activites were seen in 7 out of 12 cases with $^{99m}Tc-DTPA$ aerosol and in 5/12 with Technegas. The gastric activities were seen in 5/12 and 1/12 cases respectively. The average values of PI were 61.26% with $^{99m}Tc-DTPA$ aerosol and 69.20% with Technegas (p>0.05). Using $^{99m}Tc-DTPA$ aerosol, COPD patients showed deposition in the central airways with poor visualization of the peripheral areas of the lungs. In Technegas studies these phenomena were less prominent, and the examination is well tolerated by pateients and requires only a minimum of patient cooperation. With superiority of easy availability and handling, better physical characteristics and favorable Image quality, Technegas is a Promising agent for lung ventilation scanning.

• Journal of Surface Science and Engineering
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.207-216
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• 1979

Environmental pollution or contaminations caused by various kinds of pollutants have become one of most serious problems of our time. Environ mental pollution is the unfavoralble alteration of our surroundings, through direct or indirect effects of changes in energy patterns, rediation levels, chemical and physical constitution and abundances of organisms. These changes may affect humans directly or through their supplies of water and of agicultural and other biological products, their physical objects or possessions, or their opportunities for recreation and appreciation of nature. Pollutants that meet the criteria of this definition of environmental pollution are numerous: gases (such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides) and paniculate matter (such as smoke particles, lead aerosols, and asbestos) in the atmosphere; pesticides and radioactive isotopes in the atmosphee and in waterways; sewage, organic. chemicals, and phosphates in water; solid wastes on land; excessive heating (thermal pollution) of rivers and lakes; and many others. Some of these pollutants are introduced into the environment naturally, others by human actions, and most in both ways. Our major concer is with environmental pollution resulting wholly or largely as a by-product of human activities, because these can be controlled most readily. Environmental pollution cannot be solved by science and technology alone. It should be handled by an interdisciplinary approach with combined methods of science and technology as wen as social science disciplines for the better solution of this critical problem. In this respect, introducing "Environmental Science," a new scientific approach for the solution of environmental problems, which is now widely accepted by most developed countries of the world will be very helpful for systematization of theoretical basis for a new scientific approach to environmental pollution. Environmental science is "the study of all systems of air, land, water, energy, and life that surround Man. It includes all sciences directed to the system-level of understanding of the environment, drawing especially upon such disciplines as meteorology, geophysics, oceanography, and ecology, and utilizing to the fullest knowledge and techniques developed in such fields as physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics and engineering as well as many social science disciplines, such as economics, such as economics, law, political science and public administration." The components of this discipline are not new, for they are drawn from existing areas of science within biology chemistry, physics, and geoscience. What is really new about environmental science, however, is it siewpoint - its orientation to global problems, its conception of the earth as a set of interlocking, interacting systems, and its interest in Man as a part of these systems.