During the treatment of spent nuclear fuel, radioactive iodine is generated in a liquefied or gaseous form in a specific process. In the case of iodine 129, it is a long-lived nuclide with a very long halflife and has high groundwater mobility under repository conditions. Despite showing a low radioactivity value, research on the management of radioactive iodine from a long-term perspective is continuously being performed. Although research has been conducted using borosilicate glass as a medium for solidifying iodine, compatibility of I in borosilicate glass is very small and the volatility is high in the solidification process. So it is not suitable as a solidified substance of iodine. Therefore, studies on other solidification media to replace them are continuously being conducted. Our research team tried to develop a new medium that can contain iodine in a solidified body stably through a simple heat treatment process and can improve problems such as volatility and waste loading. Iodine is captured as AgI in the Ag ion-exchanged zeolite. So, TeO2, Ag2O, and Bi2O3 having a high AgI loading rate were used as main components. It was named TAB after taking the first letter of each element. In previous studies, the physical properties, structure, and chemical stability of TAB materials were confirmed. PCT (Product Consistent test) was performed to confirm chemical stability. It is mainly used to compare the chemical stability of glass materials with other glass materials, but there are limitations in evaluating the long-term chemical stability of materials. In this experiment, we tried to evaluate the long-term stability of TAB and compare it with borosilicate, which is conventionally used to treat radioactive waste. In addition, we tried to understand the leaching behavior inside the TAB medium. For this purpose, ASTM C1308 test was performed for 365 days, and distilled water and KURT groundwater were used as leachates to examine the effect of ions in the groundwater on the solidified body. To analyze the leaching behavior, ICP-MS and ICP-OES analyses were performed, and the cross-section of the sample after leaching was observed through SEM.

To reduce the environmental burden caused by the disposal of spent nuclear fuel and maximize the utilization of the repository facility, waste burden minimization technology is currently being developed at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KEARI). The technology includes a nuclide management process that can maximize disposal efficiency by selectively separating and collecting major nuclides in spent nuclear fuel. In addition, for efficient storage facility utilization, the short-term decay heat generated by spent nuclear fuel must be removed from the waste stream. To minimize the short-term thermal load on the repository facility, it is necessary to separate heat generating nuclides such as Cs-137 and Sr-90 from the spent fuel. In particular, Sr-90 must be separated because it generates high heat during the decay process. KAERI has developed a technology for separating Sr nuclides from Group II nuclides separated through the nuclide management process. In this study, we prepared Sr ceramic waste form, SrTiO3, by using the solid-state reaction method for long-term storage for the decay of separated Sr nuclides and evaluated the physicochemical properties of the waste form. Also, the radiological and thermal characteristics of the Sr waste form were evaluated by predicting the composition of Sr nuclides separated through the nuclide management process, and the estimation of centerline temperature was carried out using the experimental thermal data and steady state conduction equation in a long and solid cylinder type waste form. These results provided fundamental data for long-term storage and management of Sr waste.

In Korea livestock farms breeding cattle have been suffering from re-emerging problems of Brucella (B.) abortus infection while steady decline of bovine brucellosis. Therefore, this study underscored the identification and association of etiological agent of brucellosis in cattle in South Korea. The incidence of brucellosis in cattle was analyzed by bacteriological and molecular methods in 187 brucellosis-suspicious farms of 11 regions between 2018 and 2020. Brucella isolates from various specimens were identified by Brucella-specific multiplex PCR. Epidemiological data were collected by local official veterinarians through history taking from farmers and animal data systems. In 230 of 560 cattle (40.9%) and 94 of 187 farms (50.3%), a total of 313 B. abortus were isolated from various specimens, the majority of isolates were from supramammary lymph node (41%). In epidemiological findings, the majority of positive cases were mainly caused by resurgence (43.7%) and unknown (37.2%). Of 94 positive cases isolated B. abortus, abortion in cattle infected by B. abortus occurred in 51 farms (54.3%) where led to resurgence in 30 farms and environmental survival of B. abortus in 9 farms. Consequently, these findings revealed the existence of etiological agent of bovine brucellosis in Korea, which still occurred at low levels in distinct regions where are allowed to call for persistent biosecurity. Thus, we highlight that brucellosis in Korea needs to take more effective control strategies with potential evidence. Moreover it is ultimately important to maintain a constant monitoring for eradication of brucellosis.

The rapid development of computer vision and deep learning has enabled these technologies to be applied to the automated classification and counting of microscope images, thereby relieving of some burden from pathologists in terms of performing tedious microscopic examination for analysis of a large number of slides for pathological lesions. Recently, the use of these digital methods has expanded into the field of medical image analysis. In this study, the Inception-v3 deep learning model was used for classification of chondrocytes from knee joints of rats. Knee joints were extracted, fixed in neutral buffered formalin, decalcified, processed and embedded in paraffin, and hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) stained. The H&E stained slides were converted into whole slide imaging (WSI), and the images were cropped to 79 × 79 pixels. The images were divided into training (60.42%) and test (39.58%) sets (46,349 and 30,360 images, respectively). Then, images containing chondrocytes were classified by Inception-v3 and accuracy was calculated. We visualized the images containing chondrocytes in WSIs by adding colored dots to patches. When images of chondrocytes in knee joints were evaluated, the accuracy was within the range of 91.20 ± 8.43%. Therefore, it is considered that the Inception-v3 deep learning model was able to distinguish chondrocytes from non-chondrocytes in knee joints of rats with a relatively high accuracy. The above results taken together confirmed that this deep learning model could classify the chondrocytes and this promising approach will provide pathologists a fast and accurate analysis of diverse tissue structures.

We have prepared MIL-101/graphene oxide (GO) composites with various mixing molar ratio of Fe-containing metal– organic frameworks (MOFs) against GO. When synthesizing MOFs, it was possible to synthesize uniform crystal powders using hydrothermal method. MIL-101 consists of a terephthalic acid (TPA) ligand, with the central metal composed of Fe, which was the working electrode material for supercapacitors. Field emission scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis had been done to ascertain microstructures and morphologies of the composites. Cyclic voltammetry, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, and galvanostatic charge–discharge measurements were performed to analyze the electrochemical properties of the composite electrodes in 6 M KOH electrolyte. By controlling the metal ligand mole ratio against GO, we prepared a changed MOF structure and a different composite morphology, which could be studied as one of the promising optimized electrode materials for supercapacitors.

Lithium-ion battery (LiB) is one of the special issues on nowadays and diverse researches to develop LiB with better performances have been carried out so far, especially, regarding improved properties of each component such as cathode, anode, separator and electrolyte. However, there are limited information on ‘processing’ to prepare each component, and especially fabrication of cathode is strongly dependent on thinky mixer to realize homogeneous dispersion of active materials and conductors in binders. Herein, we report on preparation of LiNi0.8Co0.1Mn0.1O2 (NCM811) based cathode materials with different carbon conductors (CNT and carbon black) using homogenizer and three-roll milling method. These processes are turned out perfect alternative to prepare cathode electrode. LiB cells were assembled using the dispersed electrode slurry and the performance of a cell was electrochemically stable, even in the case of a CNT conductor, which is normally difficult to make perfect dispersion because of its strong Van der Waals attraction between the tubes and π–π interactions.