Characterization of fly ash by energy dispersive x-ray fluorescence and instrumental neutron activation analysis

Nuclear waste generated from the nuclear power industry is a major concern towards its safe disposal. The future nuclear reactors would be loaded with metallic fuel and pyro-chemical molten salt reprocessing is proposed for spent metallic nuclear fuel. The nuclear waste generated from the pyro reprocessing is in chloride form and its vitrification in borosilicate glass matrix helps to minimize the waste generation. Therefore, suitable waste matrices are being investigated to immobilise this chloride salt waste. Zeolites are crystalline alumino silicate of micro porous materials which are believed to be the good host matrices to entrap this chloride salt waste. Huge amounts of fly ash are being produced by the burning of coal in thermal power plants which is a source material for the valuable silica and alumina, the starting materials for zeolite synthesis. Thus, the elemental profile of fly ash is necessary to accomplish the effective synthesis of zeolites materials. This study describes the non-destructive techniques viz. EDXRF and Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) employed for the characterization of fly ash samples