On 11 March 2011, the day of the unforgettable disaster of the 9 magnitude Tohoku earthquake and quickly followed by the devastating Tsunami, a damageable amount of radionuclides had dispersed from the Fukushima Daiichi's damaged nuclear reactors. Decontamination of the dispersed radionuclides from seawater and soil, due to the huge amounts of coexisting ions with competitive functionalities, has been the topmost difficulty. Ferric hexacyanoferrate, also known as Prussian blue (PB), has been the most powerful material for selectively trapping the radioactive cesium ions; its high tendency to form stable colloids in water, however, has made PB to be impossible for the open-field radioactive cesium decontamination applications. A nano/nano combinatorial approach, as is described in this study, has provided an ultimate solution to this intrinsic colloid formation difficulty of PB. Cellulose nanofibers (CNF) were used to immobilize PB via the creation of CNF-backboned PB. The CNF-backboned PB (CNF/PB) was found to be highly tolerant to water and moreover, it gave a 139 mg/g capability and a million (10) order of magnitude distribution coefficient (K) for absorbing of the radioactive cesium ion. Field studies on soil and seawater decontaminations in Fukushima gave satisfactory results, demonstrating high capabilities of CNF/PB for practical applications.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep37009 | DOI Listing |
The level of radioactive cesium in food that is generally consumed in the rehydrated state can be calculated from measurements taken in the dried state using the specific weight change rate set by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. However, only a few dried foods have a specified weight change rate. Accurate specific weight change rates are critical in determining the compliance of a dried food item with Japanese maximum limits (JMLs) for radioactivity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMar Pollut Bull
January 2025
Ocean Environment Institute, Oceanic Consulting and Trading, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
This study simulated the dispersion of Cs in the North Pacific using a Lagrangian particle model, incorporating basin-wide atmospheric deposition and direct release from the Fukushima accident. Three experiments examined the impact of vertical diffusion and velocity on dispersion behavior. EXP01 and EXP02 assumed zero vertical velocity with different vertical diffusion coefficients (1 × 10 and 2 × 10 m/s, respectively), while EXP03 used a 3-day average vertical velocity and the same diffusion coefficient as EXP01.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Environ Radioact
January 2025
Hama Agricultural Regeneration Research Centre, Fukushima Agricultural Technology Center, Minami-soma, Fukushima, 975-0036, Japan.
Radioactive cesium released into the atmosphere caused by the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant accident in March 2011 has contaminated the surrounding area. We confirmed the applicability of in-situ methods to evaluate the depth distribution of Cs by employing the ratio of Compton-scattering and photo-peak components (r) obtained from measured gamma-ray spectra. In the present study, we applied the in-situ method to farmlands in Fukushima Prefecture whose sites were disturbed by decontamination and plowing operations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEnviron Pollut
December 2024
Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, University of Georgia, P.O. Drawer E, Aiken, SC, 29802, USA; Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of Georgia, 180 E Green St, Athens, GA, 30602, USA.
Releases of coal combustion and nuclear fission wastes create contaminated landscapes that pose long-term management challenges. Efforts to facilitate the natural attenuation of legacy wastes in the environment can provide attractive habitat for passerine birds. Passerines have diverse foraging and nesting behaviors that lead to heterogenous contaminant exposure, yet few studies investigate contaminant uptake in passerines on a community scale.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProbl Radiac Med Radiobiol
December 2024
National University of Physical Education and Sport of Ukraine, 1 Fizkultury Str., Kyiv, 03150, Ukraine.
Objective: to assess the impact of stressful life events occuring with the period of restrictive measures introductionconnected to the COVID-19 pandemic and during the full-scale Russian aggression, on the anthropometric indicators and body composition of children aged 10-17 years.
Materials And Methods: The research group consisted of 56 boys and 70 girls aged 10-17 years who lived in radioactively contaminated areas of Zhytomyr, Rivne, and Kyiv regions with a soil contamination density of 137Cs from 18 kBq/m2 to 235 kBq/m2. The impact of stressful factors was assessed using the stress perception scale (PSS-10).
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