Immobilization of citric acid solutions in portland cement

Decontamination processes by using citric acid on certain items used in the nuclear area, can result in large volumes of liquid wastes with low activity or effluents, contaminated with uranium and some elements dangerous to the environment. A great number of installations that have decontamination processes adopt the zero discharge philosophy. So, one of the forms to isolate the solutions is by reducing its volume through the evaporation process. The generated must can be neutralized and encapsulated or immobilized in Portland cement. This work propose a chemical technique to destroy the citric acid in the decontamination solutions instead of neutralization and, depending on the installation convenience, a direct cement immobilization of these solutions or of the evaporation mud. The results obtained in this work involve data about the workability, setting time and mechanical resistance, after 28 days of sealed cure, for samples with water-cement ratios of 4, 0.5 and 0.6, by weight. (author). 5 refs., 2 tabs