Preliminarily Experiments of Liquid Scintillation Cocktail Waste Solidification

Authors

  • Attila Baranyi
    Affiliation

    Radioactive Waste Management Section, MVM Paks NPP, Paks, PO Box 71., 7031, Hungary

  • Katalin Kopecskó
    Affiliation

    Faculty of Civil Engineering, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Műegyetem rakpart 3, Budapest 1111, Hungary

https://doi.org/10.3311/PPci.20653

Abstract

Liquid scintillation spectroscopy (LSC) is a widely used laboratory method for measuring radioactive especially low-energy alpha and beta emitter isotopes in solutions. Since the scintillation cocktails (SCs) contain large amounts of aromatic hydrocarbon compounds after the LSC measurement, the sample usually becomes organic radioactive waste, which is challenging to manage and dispose of. The most common and effective waste treatment method is incineration, a costly and cumbersome solution. Another simpler and less expensive way is the immobilization the organic liquids by embedding in cement or geopolymer matrix.
The aim of our experiments is to find a universal mix design to solidify and immobilize scintillation cocktail wastes (SCWs) of unknown composition. During the measurement, we assumed that the SCWs could contain Ultima Gold, Ultima Gold LLT, InstaGel Plus and ProSafe FC type scintillation cocktails in pure form or mixed with unknown quantities of water. Therefore, we performed experiments with inactive pure SCs as surrogates to mimic the SCWs. Since the water content determination of the organic solutions is difficult, the mix design must be independent of the water content of SCWs.
During our experiments, we found an appropriate mix design to solidify all available SCs up to 5% using CEM I 42.5 N type cement, Metaver N type metakaolin and sodium hydroxide. We could solidify our tested SCW with this mix, and this product meets the waste acceptance criteria of all Hungarian radioactive waste repositories.

Keywords:

radioactive waste treatment, organic waste solidification, scintillation cocktail, Liquid Scintillation Spectroscopy, LSC waste

Published Online

2022-09-28

How to Cite

Baranyi, A., Kopecskó, K. “Preliminarily Experiments of Liquid Scintillation Cocktail Waste Solidification”, Periodica Polytechnica Civil Engineering, 66(4), pp. 1234–1240, 2022. https://doi.org/10.3311/PPci.20653

Issue

Section

Research Article