Development of Practical Remediation Process for Uranium-Contaminated Concrete

A volume reduction of the concrete waste by the appropriate treatment technologies will decrease the amount of waste to be disposed of and result in a reduction of the disposal cost and an enhancement of the efficiency of the disposal site. Our group has developed a 100 drums/year decontamination process and facilities for the decontamination of radioactive concrete. This practical scale process is little known. A practical decontamination process was developed to remove uranium from concrete pieces generated from the decommissioning of a uranium conversion plant. The concrete pieces are divided into two groups: concrete coated with and without epoxy. For the removal of epoxy from the concrete, direct burning by an oil flame is preferable to an electric heating method. The concrete blocks are crushed to below 30 mm and sifted to 1 mm. When the concrete pieces larger than 1 mm are sequentially washed with a clear washing solution and 1.0 M of nitric acid, most of their radioactivity reaches below the limit value of uranium for self-disposal. The concrete pieces smaller than 1 mm are decontaminated in a rotary washing machine by nitric acid, and an electrokinetic equipment is also used if their radioactivity is high