Study on decontamination of radioactive ruthenium by steel wool in waste solution

Tracer experiments were done in order to establish a decontamination process of 106Ru in radioactive waste solution by column method paying special attention on the solution of nitrato-nitrosyl complex of Ru which is often encountered as a low level radioactive solution. It turned out that metallic iron was the most effective decontaminating agent among the several tens of materials tested. The decontamination factor (DF) of 106Ru increased in proportion to the total surface area of iron and it sensitively depended on the oxidation state of the surface as revealed by the batchwise and columnwise tests. Iron samples with high corrosiveness gave a much larger DF than those with low corrosiveness. The decontamination process proceeded as iron was being oxidized via Fe(metal) → Fe(II) → Fe(III). As the results, the DF initially increased after initiating the passage of water through the column but it then decreased as the oxidation process became inactive. An excellent durability up to 10000 bed volumes was demonstrated by the column method at a high average DF of 150. (author)