Development of New Processes for the Decommissioning Decontamination and for Treatment and Disposal of the Secondary Low- and Intermediate-Level Radioactive Waste

This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited As an example of research activities in decontamination for decommissioning, new data are presented on the options for corrosion layer dissolution during the decommissioning decontamination, or persulfate regeneration for decontamination solutions re-use. For the management of spent decontamination solutions, new method based on solvent extraction of radionuclides into ionic liquid followed by electrodeposition of the radionuclides has been developed. Fields of applications of composite inorganic-organic absorbers or solid extractants with polyacrylonitrile (PAN) binding matrix for the treatment of liquid radioactive waste are reviewed; a method for americium separation from the boric acid containing NPP evaporator concentrates based on the TODGA-PAN material is discussed in more detail. Performance of a model of radionuclide transport, developed and implemented within the GoldSim programming environment, for the safety studies of the LLW/ILW repository is demonstrated on the specific case of the Richard repository (Czech Republic). Continuation and even broadening of these activities are expected in connection with the approaching end of the lifespan of the first blocks of the Czech NPPs.