Development of a carbon nanotube-based immobilization technology for the anionic radionuclide

The anionic radionuclides with a very long half-live (e.g., I, Tc, etc.) are a high-level radioactive waste (HLW) that can be a great risk to human and the environment. However, current management technologies for the HLW focus mostly on the cationic radionuclides, and their processing and disposal. The researches for the anionic radionuclides and their treatment are relatively a beginning. Thus, the efforts on the technology development for the effective immobilization for the anionic radionuclides are required to further protect human and the environment and considered very challenging. The carbon nanotubes (CNT) were selected among the nanomaterials for the development of the immobilization technique for the anionic radionuclides at the nanoscale. The properties of CNT were studied and the purification and functionalization of CNT were successfully performed. As an immobilization materials for the anionic radionuclides, a cationic nanoparticles such as iron oxides nanomaterials were synthesized by an environmentally friendly methods. The reaction between functionalized CNT and the nanoparticles were studied. Also the reaction between CNT-based immobilized materials and the anionic radionuclides were studied.. The possibility to separate and recover the radionuclides in the water flow were studied by a flow analysis, then the device were developed and tested to analyzed the efficiency. We suggest the cyclone flow, density difference and magnetic properties based technique to ensure the efficiency in the separation and recovery of the radionuclides in the flow