Radwaste immobilization with the use of special protective coatings

Available in abstract form only. Full text of publication follows: One of the most important conditions for the realization of the concept of closed nuclear fuel cycle consists in the availability of highly developed infrastructure, including reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel (SNF), and further utilization of the resulted waste. The major way for increasing the safety of rad-wastes management is the development of advanced technologies, which would enable to reprocess the whole volume of high-level waste (HLW) and to obtain the solid products offering high chemical stability which would be suitable for long-term monitored storage and/or final disposal. At the same time another way to enhance the safety of solidified HLW storage and disposal is to apply a special coating on granulated wastes or to encapsulate solidified HLW using adequate materials. The object of this work was to conduct experimental study on technology development to obtain protective covering at ceramic materials containing cesium radionuclides. Physicochemical characteristics of these materials (data on cesium leaching rate) are presented. An alternative objective of the work was to perform experiments on increasing the chemical stability of matrix compositions based on 'reactor' palladium containing europium oxide and iodine. (authors)