Characterization and leach investigations of sodium silicate matrices used for immobilization of radioactive waste

In this study, simulated liquid waste and radioactive tracers of Cs-137 and Co-60 were used to represent the high-level liquid waste (HLLW). immobilization of the liquid waste was performed by its interaction with commercial sodium silicate hydrosol to the gel point, at room temperature. The candidate waste forms forms were fabricated from the obtained hydrogel through several steps including: drying the hydrogel to a solid gel form, crushing the solid to be in a powder from, pressing the powder to the green disk form using a cold pressing technique and finally the heat treatment of the green disks to the sintered form. Characterization for the obtained waste forms was carried out using: thermal analysis (TGA and DTA), X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) techniques and porosity investigation. The leach tests for the prepared forms were conducted according to the international atomic energy agency (IAEA) standard test (static and accelerated). The static test was carried out for simulated and radioactive waste in distilled, bidistilled and ground water for 28 days. The accelerated (Soxhlet) test was conducted for simulated waste in deionized water for 72 hours. 4 figs., 7 tabs