Prediction of the radiological stability of organic wastes in low- and intermediate level radioactive waste storage

During storage of PVC-containing radioactive waste, PVC undergoes radiolytical degradation, resulting in the release of HCl. This HCl can cause corrosion of the drum, eventually leading to the degradation and loss of a safety barrier. In this work, the entire radiolytic degradation process was investigated and a quantitative model was developed. Experiments were performed to validate this model. Model simulations suggest that this form of corrosion is probably just initiated by the presence of HCl, but once initiated can continue as water-driven process, severely accelerating the degradation compared to the assumption that the reaction is purely HCl driven.