Journal of Hazardous Materials, Vol.375, 149-160, 2019
Assessment of individual and mixed alkali activated binders for solidification of a nuclear grade organic resin loaded with Cs-134, Co-60 and Eu152+154 radionuclides
Individual metakaolin-based alkali activated binder (AAB) was utilized to optimize binary and ternary ones having feldspar/metakaolin and slag/(feldspar + metakaolin) ratios of 0.3 and 0.4, respectively. These three AABs had the ability to directly solidify 10.0 (FMKO-10R), 8.0 (FMK3-8R) and 12.0% (S4FMK3-12R) of the nuclear grade KY-2 beads, respectively, recording compressive strength values greater than twice the waste acceptance criteria. Leaching of Cs-134, Co-60 and Eu152+154, whether singularly or multiply loaded, was assessed. The multi-radionuclidic systems recorded greater leached fractions in the order of: (152+154) Eu > (CS)-C-134 > Co-60. Among the studied systems, S4FMK3-12R formulations recorded the lowest diffusion coefficient values (D). Gamma-irradiation made a desired influence on all studied leaching systems with inverse relationships with the applied irradiation doses. Irradiating the optimized ternary AAB with 3.0 KGy (S4FMK3-12R-gamma 3) yielded the lowest D value (6.65 x 10(-13) cm(2)/s), when single component-Co-6(0) was diffused. The leachability indexes of all irradiated AABs were not only greatly exceeded the value of 6 but also sometimes be twice such value. XRD, FT-IR and SEM examinations of S4FMK3, S4FMK3-12R and S4FMK3-12R-gamma 3 reflected their multi-layered semicrystalline natures and to what extent these AABs and the solidified beads had good and poor radiation stabilities, respectively, with a proposed three-step mechanism of such instability.
Keywords:Geopolymeric microstructures;Direct immobilization;Organic ion-exchangers;fission/activation products;Leaching