Electrocoagulation applied to the decontamination of stainless steel parts contaminated with uranium

The decontamination of non-compact able radioactive waste, such as tools and equipment, has the purpose of removing surface radioactive waste from waste, in order to reduce its volume to be conditioned and stored. The application of treatment techniques based on electrochemistry, such as electro-coagulation (Ec) in the decontamination of waste or non-compact able radioactive materials of stainless steel containing uranium, was studied in the present work and its technical feasibility was evaluated. For this, tests were carried out, first with stainless steel plates coated with WO₃, to simulate a fixed contamination and to determine the best conditions of tungsten removal by Ec as: ph, support electrolyte, cell potential, type of counter electrode material and distance between the anode/cathode electrodes. In addition, different arrangements of configurations were tested for a rectangular acrylic cell and for a circular configuration cell, using flat plate electrodes and cylindrical electrodes to perform the removal process of the contaminant with the best conditions. In the case of the Ec, the mechanism that occurs is an electrodisolution of the iron plate, with the release of oxygen at the anode and detachment of the WO₃ layer, all the material passing to the solution with the formation of iron hydroxides. Subsequently, from the best experimental conditions to remove WO₃, UO₂ (NO₃) ₂ was used as radioactive contaminant to evaluate the feasibility of the decontamination process. Removal efficiencies of 90% uranium were obtained in 1 hour, ph = 1, using a molar solution of H₂SO₄ as support electrolyte and potential of 2.4 V. Finally, after testing the different electrochemical cell (Ec) arrays at the laboratory level, radioactive decontamination of real pieces contaminated with U-238 was performed using the circular configuration arrangement under the best experimental conditions previously determined. (Author)