Radiation chemistry of polymeric components of radioactive waste

The presentation covers fragments of research on the role of radiation chemistry in radioactive waste management. Radioactive waste often contains polymeric materials contaminated with actinides, which exhibit a activity for thousands of years. Rules of safety of transportation and environmental security of permanent storage demand the understanding of radiation chemistry of typical waste matrices. Due to a slow decay and a short range of penetration of a emitters, the experiments with actinides are not easy. 'Therefore, accelerated experiments have been performed using 10 MeV electrons of high intensity. That way chemical effects proceeding over thousands of years could be reduced to minutes in the laboratory. Simulation of the effect of a-radiolysis on polymers by low LET radiation is justified, because low LET radiation produces multi-ionization spurs resulting in the same chemistry as high LET radiation.