• Hwankyungkyoyuk
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.65-83
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to survey science teachers, perception and attitudes on disposal of school laboratory waste water and materials. To fulfill this aim, a questionnaire was administered to 244 secondary school science teachers. The result of this study revealed that there was no large disparity in the degree of understanding of laboratory waste disposal and the laboratory waste water treatment, and in secondary science teachers' perception and practicing attitude on the environment. While science teachers had deep understanding of laboratory waste disposal and its influence on environmental pollution, they expressed less positive attitude toward the actual disposal of waste materials and waste water, and participation in teacher training. Therefore, it is necessary to provide standards of systematized disposal methods and proper disposal facilities in middle and high school laboratories, as well as to investigate teachers' needs before providing teacher training program.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.49 no.5
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• pp.1010-1018
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• 2017

The European Treatment and Disposal of Irradiated Graphite and other Carbonaceous Waste project sought to develop best practices in the retrieval, treatment, and disposal of irradiated graphite including other irradiated carbonaceous waste such as structural material made of graphite, nongraphitized carbon bricks, and fuel coatings. Emphasis was given on legacy irradiated graphite, as this represents a significant inventory in respective national waste management programs. This paper provides an overview of the characteristics of graphite irradiated during its use, primarily as a moderator material, within nuclear reactors. It describes the potential techniques applicable to the retrieval, treatment, recycling/reuse, and disposal of these graphite wastes. Considering the lifecycle of nuclear graphite, from manufacture to final disposal, a number of waste management options have been developed. These options consider the techniques and technologies required to address each stage of the lifecycle, such as segregation, treatment, recycle, and ultimate disposal in a radioactive waste repository, providing a toolbox to aid operators and regulators to determine the most appropriate management strategy. It is noted that national waste management programs currently have, or are in the process of developing, respective approaches to irradiated graphite management. The output of the Treatment and Disposal of Irradiated Graphite and other Carbonaceous Waste project is intended to aid these considerations, rather than dictate them.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.29-35
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• 2013

The United States Department of Energy (US DOE) is conducting research and development (R&D) activities under the Used Fuel Disposition Campaign (UFDC) to support storage, transportation, and disposal of used nuclear fuel (UNF) and wastes generated by existing and future nuclear fuel cycles. R&D activities are ongoing at nine national laboratories, and are divided into storage, transportation and disposal. Storage R&D focuses on closing technical gaps related to extended storage of UNF. Transportation R&D focuses on ensuring transportability of UNF following extended storage, and addressing data gaps regarding nuclear fuel integrity, retrievability, and demonstration of subcriticality. Disposal R&D focuses on identifying geologic disposal options and addressing technical challenges for generic disposal concepts in mined repositories in salt, clay/shale, and granitic rocks, and deep borehole disposal. UFDC R&D goals include increasing confidence in the robustness of generic disposal concepts, reducing generic sources of uncertainty that may impact the viability of disposal concepts, and developing science and engineering tools to support the selection, characterization, and licensing of a repository. The US DOE has also initiated activities in the Nuclear Fuel Storage and Transportation (NFST) Planning Project to facilitate the development of an interim storage facility and to support transportation infrastructure in the near term.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.301-311
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• 2004

The purpose of this study was to examine teachers’ awareness of chemical waste produced in elementary school laboratory experimentation and how this awareness relates to collection and disposal of chemical waste. More specifically, the study looked at the correlation between the handling of chemical waste and factors such as years of teachers’ educational career, class size and amount of waste produced. The target population were 250 elementary school teachers in Gyeongnam area and 237 subjects were responded. Among the 237 responses, 37 cases that did not complete the questionnaire were eliminated. Therefore, 200 responses were analyzed in this study. The survey questionnaire consisted of 15 questions. The categories of the questionnaire were their skills of management and treatment of the chemical waste. The data collected were analyzed by SPSS 10.0, and the relations among variables such as class sizes and years of teaching experience were also analyzed by $x^2-test.$ The results in this study were as follows: First, there were no significant differences between the years of teaching and class sizes in the training experience of chemical waste disposal. Second, there was a significant difference between the science laboratory size and class sizes in the laboratory actual condition. In addition, in the relations between the number of times of experimentation and the years of teaching experience, there was a significant difference. Third, in terms of the discharge amount of chemical waste, there was a significant difference between the years of teaching and class sizes. Fourth, in the simple chemistry waste disposal process in the science laboratory, there also was a significant difference between the kinds of experimental equipments that used in the experimentation and the years of teaching. Based on this study, it was found that great amount of the chemical wastes produced in the science laboratory dumped into the drain and the treatment process of chemical waste was also inattentive. Even the importance of environmental education is emphasized in the elementary education, the basic problems occurred in the science laboratory is disregarded. Therefore, not only students but teachers have to pay attention to the disposal process of chemical waste in the laboratory in order to prevent environment pollution. Furthermore, the efforts of preventing environment pollution are needed such as opening the teacher training course about environment education, minimal use of chemicals, treatment of chemical waste, and so forth.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.157-178
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• 2013

This study gives a conceptual and basic direction to develop a URL (underground research laboratory) program for establishing the performance and safety of a deep geological disposal system in Korea. The concept of deep geological disposal is one of the preferred methodologies for the final disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF). Advanced countries with radioactive waste disposal have developed their own disposal concepts reasonable to their social and environmental conditions and applied to their commercial projects. Deep geological disposal system is a multi-barrier system generally consisting of an engineered barrier and natural barrier. A disposal facility and its host environment can be relied on a necessary containment and isolation over timescales envisaged as several to tens of thousands of years. A disposal system is not allowed in the commercial stage of the disposal program without a validation and demonstration of the performance and safety of the system. All issues confirming performance and safety of a disposal system include investigation, analysis, assessment, design, construction, operation and closure from planning to closure of the deep geological repository. Advanced countries perform RD&D (research, development & demonstration) programs to validate the performance and safety of a disposal system using a URL facility located at the preferred rock area within their own territories. The results and processes from the URL program contribute to construct technical criteria and guidelines for site selection as well as suitability and safety assessment of the final disposal site. Furthermore, the URL program also plays a decisive role in promoting scientific understanding of the deep geological disposal system for stakeholders, such as the public, regulator, and experts.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.4
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• pp.1224-1235
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• 2021

An integrated waste management approach for irradiated graphite was developed during the European Commission project 'Treatment and Disposal of Irradiated Graphite and other Carbonaceous Waste'. This included the identification of potential options for the management of irradiated graphite, taking account of storage, retrieval, treatment and disposal methods. This paper describes how these options can be assessed using multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) for a case study relating to a generic power reactor. Criteria have been defined to account for safety, environmental, economic and socio-political factors, including radiological impact, resource usage, economic costs and risks. The impact of each option against each criterion has been assessed using data from the project and the wider literature. A linear additive approach has been used to convert the calculated impacts to scores. To account for the relative importance of the criteria, example weightings were allocated. This application has shown that MCDA approaches can be used to support complex decisions regarding irradiated graphite management, accounting for a wide range of criteria. Use of this approach by individual countries or organisations will need to account for the specific options, scores, weightings and constraints that apply, based on their national strategies, regulatory requirements and public acceptability.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.301-312
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• 2017

The concept of deep borehole disposal (DBD) for high-level nuclear wastes has been around for about 40 years. Now, the Department of Energy (DOE) in the United States (U.S.) is re-examining this concept through recent studies at Sandia National Laboratory and a field test. With DBD, nuclear waste will be emplaced in boreholes at depths of 3 to 5 km in crystalline basement rocks. Thinking is that these settings will provide nearly intact rock and fluid density stratification, which together should act as a robust geologic barrier, requiring only minimal performance from the engineered components. The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board (NWTRB) has raised concerns that the deep subsurface is more complicated, leading to science, engineering, and safety issues. However, given time and resources, DBD will evolve substantially in the ability to drill deep holes and make measurements there. A leap forward in technology for drilling could lead to other exciting geological applications. Possible innovations might include deep robotic mining, deep energy production, or crustal sequestration of $CO_2$, and new ideas for nuclear waste disposal. Novel technologies could be explored by Korean geologists through simple proof-of-concept experiments and technology demonstrations.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.461-467
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• 2021

Polyethylene-terephthalate (PET) from bottle waste and linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) from barrels and tanks waste are widely available and need to be recycled. Recycling them in concrete and mortar is an alternative solution for their disposal. In this study various quantities of sand (5%, 10%, 15% and 20%) were substituted by powder from LLDPE waste. In addition, PET waste fibers (corrugated, straight) were added to the mortar with different percentages (0.5%, 1%, 1.5% and 2%) of cement mass. This paper evaluate the mechanical and physical properties of the composites in fresh (workability, air content and density) and hardened state (compressive and flexural strength, water absorption and total shrinkage). From the experimental results, it can be concluded that the strengthening in tensile of the mortar with plastic waste corrugated fibers is improved. Other important results are that the water absorption and the density rate are less than that of the ordinary mortar.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.4
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• pp.1037-1040
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• 2019

For the past 50 years, graphite has been widely used as a moderator, reflector and fuel matrix in different kinds of gas-cooled reactors. Resulting in approximately 250,000 metric tons of irradiated graphite waste. One of the most significant long-lived radioisotope from graphite reactors is carbon-14 ($^{14}C$) with a half-life of 5730 years, this makes it a huge concern for deep geologic disposal of nuclear graphite (NG). Considering the lifecycle of NG a number of waste management options have been developed, mainly focused on the achievement the radiological requirements for disposal. The existing approaches for recycling depend on the cost to be economically viable. In this new study, an affordable process to remove $^{14}C$ has been proposed using samples taken from the Nuclear Power Plant in Latina (Italy) which have been used to investigate the capability of organic and inorganic solvents in removing $^{14}C$ from exfoliated nuclear graphite, with the aim to design a practicable approach to obtain graphite for recycling or/and safety disposed as L& LLW.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.29-38
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• 2021

The article summarises the status and competence of UJV Rez, a. s. (up to 2012, the Nuclear Research Institute Rez, Czech Republic) in the field of radioactive waste (RAW) management as a company managing of 95% of institutional radioactive wastes in Czech Republic. UJV Rez a. s. has been one of the Czech Republic's key research and engineering institutions in the field of nuclear energy production since 1955. The company processes and conditions prior to storage 95% of so-called institutional RAW and is the principal partner of the state with respect to the research support of the Czech deep geological repository development project. UJV Rez a. s. boasts its own accredited radiochemical analytical test laboratory, unique of its kind in the Czech Republic. Of equal importance is UJV Rez's active participation in a range of international organisations and associations and its involvement in wide range of international projects, and so as European projects. One of them is EU funded project PREDIS: Pre-disposal management of radioactive wastes, that has started at September 2020, focused on the field of low level radioactive waste (LLW) and intermediate level radioactive waste (ILW) pre-disposal.