Development of chemical methods of radioactive waste management for UK power reactor sites

Chemical processing can be beneficial in the management of medium level radioactive waste. The purpose of such processing is to reduce the volume of the waste, to separate active components from inactive components, or to change the waste;s chemical form to make it more amenable to safe disposal. This paper describes two chemical techniques which are currently being developed to assist in the management of radioactive waste from the UK's Magnox Power Reactor sites. The first case concerns regeneration and reuse of cesium-selective ion exchange materials and in the second case a process is described for selectively dissolving Magnox alloy waste in carbon dioxide saturated water as a means of separating it from active components