Radioactive waste management: Review on clearance levels and acceptance criteria legislation, requirements and standards

Abstract

In 2011 the joint research project Metrology for Radioactive Waste Management (MetroRWM)(1) of the European Metrology Research Programme (EMRP) started with a total duration of three years. Within this project, new metrological resources for the assessment of radioactive waste, including their calibration with new reference materials traceable to national standards will be developed. This paper gives a review on national, European and international strategies as basis for science-based metrological requirements in clearance and acceptance of radioactive waste.

Characterization and radioactive evaluation of the concrete from a radiotherapy bunker

“…The obtained results can be explained by taking into account that the threshold energy of the reactions (γ,n) is 8.5 MeV for heavy cores (i.e., for Pb, W, etc.) and about 10 MeV for most of the isotopes of lower atomic number present in the materials 33 . In this case, the energy of the dismantled LINAC was 6 MeV, so, despite the time elapsed, no activation has occurred in the concrete materials in the bunker.…”

“…In the measurements of equivalent dose rates (μSv/h H10; Table 5), at a given distance from the surface, all values did not exceed the legal limit of 2 μSv/h 33 …”

Review on Selection and Experiment Method of Commonly Studied Simulated Radionuclides in Researches of Nuclear Waste Solidification

“…Nuclear energy is a high-efficiency energy source with high energy density, low cost, and no air pollution emission [1]. However, the nuclear facilities of nuclear power, medicine, scientific research, industry, and agriculture can generate large amounts of nuclear waste during operation and decommissioning [2,3]. Nuclear waste contains more than 30 radioactive elements, mainly including actinides (such as Pu and U), fission elements (such as Cs, Sr, I, Xe, and Ru), and other radioactive elements, which can emit radioactive alpha rays (α-rays), beta rays (β-rays), and gamma rays (c-rays) during the decay of the nucleus, and X-rays by atomic shell electron transitions [4][5][6].…”

“…In most cases, actual nuclear wastes could not be used in these studies due to their radioactive, corrosive, and other harmful properties to the human body. In addition, it is unpractical to study the radiation damage to the solidified bodies for hundreds of years or even thousands of years through actual experiments [2,24]. Researchers [24][25][26][27] found that some nonradioactive isotopes of the radionuclides or some other nonradioactive elements had similar physical and chemical properties to the corresponding radionuclides.…”

Elemental Analysis of Raw Materials of Nuclear Reactor Shielding to Develop Low Activation Concrete

“…Some of them are coming to the end of their operating lives and will require decommissioning. After decommissioning a nuclear reactor, long-lived radioisotopes formed by (n,γ) reaction in biological concrete shielding cause difficulty in waste management of the activated shielding [1,2]. Therefore, decommissioning of nuclear installations after their operating life-time and their dismantling are connected with the necessity of the disassembling, handling and disposing of a large amount of radioactive equipment and structures.…”