Achieving and verification of a destructive testing procedure for radioactive waste characterization

To ensure the radiological protection of personnel, population and environment, the radioactive waste management, implying transport and final disposal, requires an accurate characterization. At the Post Irradiation Examination Laboratory (LEPI) of INR Pitesti liquid and solid low level β-γ radioactive wastes are usually produced. These appear as by-products in activities of operation, maintenance, and repair of equipment, as well as, in the production of radioactive sources for industrial and medical applications (60Co, 99 Mo, 192 Ir). Thus, the procedure implies the radioactive waste destructive analysis and measurements of specific total and α, β and γ activities, respectively, as well as, determination of some correlation factors of the total gamma activity (determined by nondestructive testing means) and the total alpha and beta activities, respectively. The destructive control is achieved by radiochemical analysis methods implying: sampling, fragmentation calcination, samples' mineralization, chemical separation and radioactivity measurements. These factors are used then for determination of the radioactive waste total activity on the basis of non-destructive determination of the gamma emitting radionuclide concentrations. The experimental results were obtained by analysing radioactive waste samples from the LEPI's transfer cell. The gamma emitters' activity originated from: 60 Co, 95 Zr, 134 Cs, 137 Cs and 192 Ir