Interim report on the activity hold-up, and ease of decontamination of permanent coatings and surface treatments incorporated in a glove box floor

A commercial glass reinforced plastic (GRP) glove box has been equipped with 1 square foot tiles of alternative flooring materials. These comprise highly polished GRP, poly-ether-ether-ketone (PEEK), electropolished stainless steel, cold-rolled stainless steel foil, bright nickel electroplate on stainless steel and hard chrome electroplate on stainless steel. The natural GRP finish was used as a reference surface. Standard PuO2 handling and floor abrasion operations have been carried out on a regular basis. Subsequently, the floor tiles have been decontaminated by swabbing with Arklone soaked tissues and a mass balance has determined the fraction of PuO2 unaccounted to be about 1%. Hard, smooth surfaces are promising to give the best performance in minimizing activity retention under these abrasive conditions to ∼ 100 μg cm-2. Glove box aerosol concentrations have also been monitored as a function of time after the completion of handling operations by air sampling and by gravity settling. After an initial rapid decrease over ∼ 2 hours, a steady state is reached corresponding to ∼ 1 ng/l of PuO2. (author)