Because the service lives of nuclear power plants are limited to a certain number of years, the need for the management of quite a large volume of radioactive contaminated concrete arises, which, in most cases, was not taken into account when the capacities of the low and medium activity repositories were designed. Therefore, the decontamination of these structures would be of great interest in order to declassify the wastes as radioactive and manage them as conventional ones. This research studies the reliability of the application of electrical fields to decontaminate radioactive contaminated concrete. Three series of decontamination experiments have been carried out, using Cs+, Sr2-, Co2+, and Fe3+ ions added during casting and that have penetrated from the outside, testing carbonated and uncarbonated matrixes, and using laboratory devices as well as the homemade device for in situ application named "honeycomb device". As a result, the application of electrical fields to concrete-contaminated structures has been developed as a new technique to extract radioactive ionic species from concrete. This method of decontamination has been patented by ENRESA (Spanish Company for the Management of Radioactive Wastes) in association with the IETcc.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/es015683c | DOI Listing |
Mar Pollut Bull
January 2025
School of Life Sciences, University of Essex, Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK.
Although oil and gas (O&G) derived produced waters and drill cuttings are known to contain enhanced levels of naturally occurring radium-228 (Ra) and radium-226 (Ra), most relevant ecological impact assessments have excluded radiological hazards and focus on other important contaminants, such as hydrocarbons and metals. Also, due to restricted access to the delimiting safety zone around operational O&G platforms, the few previous radioecological risk assessment studies have been conducted using seawater samples collected far from the main discharge point and applying default dilution and transfer factors to estimate concentrations of contaminants in biota. In this case study, sediment cores were collected close to a former O&G platform, Northwest Hutton (NWH), that used to be in the UK North Sea (61.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Environ Radioact
January 2025
Department of Soil and Environment, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Box 7070, 750 07, Uppsala, Sweden.
In this study, the long-term transfer of Cs from soil to grass on Swedish farms and fields, heavily contaminated after the 1986 radioactive fallout, was investigated. The study spans over 8-14 years, beginning in June 1986, and covers various soil types and agricultural practices. The transfer of Cs from soil to grass was highly variable, with transfer factors ranging from 1.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGels
January 2025
Nuclear Chemical Engineering Study Program, Polytechnic Institute of Nuclear Technology-BRIN, Yogyakarta 55281, Central Java, Indonesia.
Decommissioning of nuclear facilities can be performed in stages. One of the stages and processes in decontamination is the decontamination process before dismantling or facility area recovery activities. Decontamination can be performed using various methods, primarily physical and chemical.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Nucl Med
January 2025
Intramural Research Program, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland;
Cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) is present in a healthy brain at low densities but can be markedly upregulated by excitatory input and by inflammogens. This study evaluated the sensitivity of the PET radioligand [C]-6-methoxy-2-(4-(methylsulfonyl)phenyl)--(thiophen-2-ylmethyl)pyrimidin-4-amine ([C]MC1) to detect COX-2 density in a healthy human brain. The specificity of [C]MC1 was confirmed using lipopolysaccharide-injected rats and transgenic mice expressing the human gene, with 120-min baseline and blocked scans using COX-1 and COX-2 selective agents.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIsotopes Environ Health Stud
January 2025
Research Institute of Biology, Yerevan State University, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia.
Plant test systems are a sensitive way to detect the genetic effects of various contaminants in environmental compartments: water, soil and sediments. Biotesting of the genotoxicity of soil samples with various activity concentrations of naturally occurring (Ra, Th, K) and artificial (Cs) radionuclides in soil, from the territory of the Aragats Massif (Armenia) was carried out with the application of the micronucleus (Trad-MСN) and stamen hair mutation (Trad-SHM) bioassays of (clone 02) model test-object in the soil - plant system. Undisturbed soil sampling was performed in the southern slopes of the Aragats Massif, from different altitudes (from 1000 to 3200 m above sea level).
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