Pulsed Laser Cleaning Trials for Nuclear Decontamination - 21007

The work describes the pulsed laser cleaning of contaminants in radioactive environments. The 100 Watt laser cleaning system by Allied Scientific Pro, the Laser Blast-100 has been used in three different environments to remove contaminants. Two of these trials were carried out in the United States. The first one took place at Permafix low and intermediate level radioactive decontamination facility at Richland, Washington in July 2018. The second trial in the US took place at the Energy solutions Memphis facility in August 2019. The third trial took place at the Canadian Nuclear Laboratory (CNL) at Chalk River, Ontario in December 2019. Several metallic and non-metallic objects were decontaminated using the laser blast system and every time the before and after radiation measurements were taken and compared. The paper also compares the pros and cons of laser cleaning method with the conventional methods utilized at each facility such as sandblasting, on the spot cleaning and wipe, steam cleaning and dry ice cleaning. (authors)