Beneficial use of waste nuclear isotopes - 137Cs radiation treatment of municipal sludge and compost

For the past several years, the Nuclear Research and Applications Division has been sponsoring, in cooperation with EPA, a program to develop the technology and investigate the potential of using gamma radiation to reduce pathogen levels in sewage sludge. The irradiation source would be cesium-137 which has been extracted from the reactor wastes and diverted to this use. It would be used in this irradiation process until its source strength had decayed to the point that it was no longer effective. At that point, it would be transferred for disposal. This sludge irradiation program is a part of a larger effort to develop beneficial uses of individual isotopes or combinations of isotopes contained in the reactor wastes. Such potential applications include strontium-90 for power generation in remote applications, extraction of platinum family metals to help alleviate demands on foreign supplies, and use of krypton-85 in self-luminous light sources. Sludge irradiation offers what appears to be near-term benefits and has received the major focus in this program. This summary report reviews the progress and current status in the sludge irradiation program. It reviews the background of the national sludge problem and describes how the irradiation process may be applied to this problem. The two major approaches, wet and dry irradiation, are described and their technical and economic potential is discussed. Finally, the status of on-going efforts to experimentally apply irradiation to sludges are summarized and a projected development plan is outlined. (Auth.)