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Loss of radioactivity in radiocesium-bearing microparticles emitted from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant by heating

In this article, we learn that microscopic glass beads containing Cesium 137 “lose” their radioactivity when, mixed with other radioactive debris, they are burned up in incinerators.
The researchers are pleased to see that the ashes from these incinerators will be free of Caesium 137.
It should be pointed out that radioactivity never disappears like that instantaneously. In the best of cases this Cesium will be, one can dream, filtered in the chimneys of incinerators. Otherwise the incineration will have simply served to disperse the radioactive cesium from the microscopic beads in the form of aerosols.
It is unfortunate that scientists are not working in a free vacuum, but need for their career and for their researches the approval and the financing of governmental and corporate institutions. In this case, those 4 Japanese scientists, Taiga Okumura, Noriko Yamaguchi, Terumi Dohi, Kazuki Iijima & Toshihiro Kogure, just spinned this paper into a ‘scientific’ propaganda to justify the Japanese government backed-up incineration.…
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Abstract
Radiocesium-bearing microparticles (CsPs) substantially made of silicate glass are a novel form of radiocesium emitted from the broken containment vessel of Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. CsPs have a potential risk of internal radiation exposure caused by inhalation. Radiation-contaminated waste including CsPs is being burned in incinerators; therefore, this study has investigated the responses of CsPs to heating in air. The radioactivity of CsPs gradually decreased from 600 °C and was almost lost when the temperature reached 1000 °C. The size and spherical morphology of CsPs were almost unchanged after heating, but cesium including radiocesium, potassium and chlorine were lost, probably diffused away from the CsPs. Iron, zinc and tin originally dissolved in the glass matrix were crystallized to oxide nanoparticles inside the CsPs. When the CsPs were heated together with weathered granitic soil that is common in Fukushima, the radiocesium released from CsPs was sorbed by the surrounding soil. From these results, it is expected that the radioactivity of CsPs will be lost when radiation-contaminated waste including CsPs is burned in incinerators.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-28087-5

July 19, 2018 Posted by | Fukushima 2018 | , , , , | Leave a comment