Copper hexacyanoferrate (Cu-HCF), which is a type of Prussian Blue analogue (PBA), possesses a specific lattice structure that allows it to selectively and effectively adsorb cesium with a high capacity. However, its powdery form presents difficulties in terms of recovery when introduced into aqueous environments, and its dispersion in water has the potential to impede sunlight penetration, possibly affecting aquatic ecosystems. To address this, sponge-type aluminum oxide, referred to as alumina foam (AF), was employed as a supporting material. The synthesis was achieved through a dip-coating method, involving the coating of aluminum oxide foam with copper oxide, followed by a reaction with potassium hexacyanoferrate (KHCF), resulting in the in-situ formation of Cu-HCF. Notably, Copper oxide remained chemically stable, which led to the application of 1, 3, 5-benzenetricarboxylic acid (H3BTC) to facilitate its conversion into Cu-HCF. This was necessary to ensure the proper transformation of copper oxide into Cu-HCF on the AF in the presence of KHCF. The synthesis of Cu-HCF from copper oxide using H3BTC was verified through X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. The manufactured adsorbent material, referred to as AF@CuHCF, was characterized using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). These analyses revealed the presence of the characteristic C≡N bond at 2,100 cm-1, confirming the existence of Cu-HCF within the AF@CuHCF, accounting for approximately 3.24% of its composition. AF@CuHCF exhibited a maximum adsorption capacity of 34.74 mg/g and demonstrated selective cesium adsorption even in the presence of competing ions such as Na+, K+, Mg2+, and Ca2+. Consequently, AF@CuHCF effectively validated its capabilities to selectively and efficiently adsorb cesium from Cs-contaminating wastewater.

Economical radioactive soil treatment technology is essential to safely and efficiently treat of high-concentration radioactive areas and contaminated sites during operation of nuclear power plants at home and abroad. This study is to determine the performance of BERAD (Beautiful Environmental construction’s RAdioactive soil Decontamination system) before applying magnetic nanoparticles and adsorbents developed by the KAERI (Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute) which will be used in the national funded project to a large-capacity radioactive soil decontamination system. BERAD uses Soil Washing Process by US EPA (402-R-007-004 (2007)) and can decontaminate 0.5 tons of radioactive soil per hour through water washing and/or chemical washing with particle size separation. When contaminated soil is input to BERAD, the soil is selected and washed, and after going through a rinse stage and particle size separation stage, it discharges decontaminated soil separated by sludge of less than 0.075 mm. In this experiment, the concentrations of four general isotopes (A, B, C, and D which are important radioisotopes when soil is contaminated by them.) were analyzed by using ICP-MS to compare before and after decontamination by BERAD. Since BERAD is the commercial-scale pilot system that decontaminates relatively large amount of soil, so it is difficult to test using radioactive isotopes. So important general elements such as A, B, C, and D in soil were analyzed. In the study, BERAD decontaminated soil by using water washing. And the particle size of soil was divided into a total of six particle size sections with five sieves: 4 mm, 2 mm, 0.850 mm, 0.212 mm, and 0.075 mm. Concentrations of A, B, C, and D in the soil particles larger than 4 mm are almost the lowest regardless of before and after decontamination by BERAD. For soil particles less than 4 mm, the concentrations of C and D decreased constantly after BERAD decontamination. On the other hand, the decontamination efficiency of A and B decreased as the soil particle became smaller, but the concentrations of A and B increased for the soil particle below 0.075 mm. As a result, decontamination efficiency of one cycle using BERAD for all nuclides in soil particles between 4 mm and 0.075 mm is about 45% to 65 %.

In this study, four technologies were selected to treat river water, lake water, and groundwater that may be contaminated by tritium contaminated water and tritium outflow from nuclear power plants, performance evaluation was performed with a lab-scale device, and then a pilot-scale hybrid removal facility was designed. In the case of hybrid removal facilities, it consists of a pretreatment unit, a main treatment unit, and a post-treatment unit. After removing some ionic, particulate pollutants and tritium from the pretreatment unit consisting of UF, RO, EDI, and CDI, pure water (2 μS/cm) tritium contaminated water is sent to the main treatment process. In this treatment process, which is operated by combining four single process technologies using an inorganic adsorbent, a zeolite membrane, an electrochemical module and aluminumsupported ion exchange resin, the concentration of tritium can be reduced. At this time, the tritium treatment efficiency of this treatment process can be increased by improving the operation order of four single processes and the performance of inorganic adsorbents, zeolite membrane, electrochemical modules, and aluminum- supported ion exchange resins used in a single process. Therefore, in this study, as part of a study to increase the processing efficiency of the main treatment facility, the tritium removal efficiency according to the type of inorganic adsorbent was compared, and considerations were considered when operating the complex process.

Japan’s government has announced plan to release the contaminated water stored from the tanks of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant site into the sea in June. The contaminated water is treated by SARRY (Cesium removal facility) and ALPS (advanced liquid processing system) to remove 62 radionuclide containing Cesium, Strontium, Iodine, and so on using filtration, precipitation (or coprecipitation) and adsorption for other nuclides (except for H-3 and C-14). The total amount of the contaminated water stored at tanks is 1,328,508 m3 (as of March 23, 2023). Currently, three ALPS systems which are existing ALPS, improved ALPS, high performance ALPS have been operated to meet the regulatory standard for release to the sea. According to the release plan, they have announced that 30 nuclides and H-3 concentration of the contaminated water will be measured and assessed before/after the discharge of the contaminated water into the sea. Before the release, the contaminated water is re-treated by reverse osmosis membrane facility and additional ALPS. And then, the water will be diluted with seawater more than 100 times. The diluted water will then move through an undersea tunnel and be released about 1 kilometer off the coast.

Though many treatment technologies of contaminated water have been developed for a long time, it is still difficult to find a suitable method for large volumes of low radioactivity tritium-contaminated water. For this reason, most of the tritium-contaminated water been discharged to the biosphere or been stored in a special control area as radioactive waste. Activated carbon is a common material, but since there are few data on the treatment of tritium-contaminated water, its adsorption behavior to HTO is worth studied. In our study, for the tritium-contaminated water having a low radioactivity concentration (350-480 Bq/g), adsorption experiments were performed with activated carbon. The effects on the selective adsorption of HTO were investigated for temperature (5-55°C), hydrogen peroxide (1-10wt%) and activated carbon reuse (1-6 times) under non-equilibrium conditions. The treatment of activated carbon significantly reduced the radioactivity of tritium-contaminated water around 60 minutes of adsorption time. In order to clearly analyze the experimental results, positive factors and negative factors on the HTO selectivity were separately evaluated according to the adsorption time. Temperature and the reuse of activated carbon were evaluated as negative factors for HTO selectivity of activated carbon, whereas hydrogen peroxide (> 5wt%) was evaluated as a positive factor. By the evaluation method of separating the influencing factors into two types, the adsorption experimental results of HTO could be understood more clearly.

In the field of 3H decontamination technology, the number of patent applications worldwide has been steadily increasing since 2012 after the Fukushima nuclear accident. In particular, Japan has a relatively large number of intellectual property rights in the field of 3H processing technology, and it seems to have entered a mature stage in which the growth rate of patent applications is slightly reduced. In Japan, tritium is being decontaminated through the Semi-Pilot-class complex process (ROSATOM, Russia) using vacuum distillation and hydrogen isotope exchange reaction, and the Combined Electrolysis Catalytic Exchange (CECE, Kurion, U.S.) process. However, it is not enough to handle the increasing number of HTOs every year, so the decision to release them to the sea has been made. Another commercial technology in foreign countries is the vapor phase catalyst exchange process (VPCE) in operation at the Darlington Nuclear Power Plant in Canada. This process is a case of applying tritium exchange technology using a catalyst in a high-temperature vapor state. The only commercially available tritium removal technology in Korea is the Wolseong Nuclear Power Plant’s Removal Facility (TRF). However, TRF is a process for removing HTO from D2O of pure water, so it is suitable only for heavy water with high tritium concentration, and is not suitable for seawater caused by Fukushima nuclear power plant’s serious accident, and surface water and groundwater contaminated by environmental outflow of tritium. Until now, such as low-temperature decompression distillation method, water-hydrogen isotope exchange method, gas hydrate method, acid and alkali treatment method, adsorption method using inorganic adsorbent (zeolite, activated carbon), separator method using electrolysis, ion exchange adsorption method using ion exchange resin, etc. have been studied as leading technologies for tritium decontamination. However, any single technology alone has problems such as energy efficiency and processing capacity in processing tritium, and needs to be supplemented. Therefore, in this study, four core technologies with potential for development were selected to select the elemental technology field of pilot facilities for treating tritium, and specialized research teams from four universities are conducting technology development. It was verified that, although each process has different operating conditions, tritium removal performance is up to 60% in the multi-stage zeolite membrane process, 30% in the metal oxide & electrochemical treatment process, 43% in the process using hydrophilic inorganic adsorbent, and 8% in the process using functional ion exchange resin. After that, in order to fuse with the pretreatment process technology for treating various water quality tritium contaminated water conducted in previous studies, the hybrid composite process was designed by reflecting the characteristics of each technology. The first goal is to create a Pilot hybrid tritium removal facility with 70% tritium removal efficiency and a flow rate of 10 L/hr, and eventually develop a 100 L/hr flow tritium removal system with 80% tritium removal efficiency through performance improvement and scale-up. It is also considering technology for the postprocessing process in the future.

Recently, Japan’s government has announced Tokyo Electric Power Company’s plan to discharge contaminated water stored from the tanks of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant site into the sea. The contaminated water is treated by advanced liquid processing system (ALPS) to remove 62 radionuclide containing cesium, strontium, iodine and etc. using co-precipitation (or precipitation) and adsorption for other nuclides (except for tritium and carbon-14). The total amount of the contaminated water generated by ALPS facility is 1,311,736 m3 (as of August 18, 2022). The amount of contaminated water is estimated same as Tokyo dome volume. Under the sea discharge plan, the contaminated water will be diluted in seawater more than 100 times, and tritium concentration lowered 1/7 of the drinking water standard set by the World Health Organization (10,000 Bq/liters). The diluted water will then move through an undersea tunnel and be discharged about 1 kilometer off the coast.

The Fukushima nuclear power plant accident, which was caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011, is of great concern to the Korean people. The scope of interest is wide and diverse, from the nuclear accident itself and the damage situation, to the current situation in Fukushima Prefecture and Japan, and to the safety of Japanese agricultural and fishery products. Concerns about nuclear safety following the Fukushima nuclear accident have a significant impact on neighboring nation’s energy policy. It has been 11 years since the Fukushima nuclear accident. In neighboring nation society, the nature and extent of damage caused by the Fukushima nuclear accident, the feasibility of follow-up measures at home and abroad, the impact on neighboring nations, and the direction of nuclear policy reflecting the lessons of the accident are hotly debated topics. Recently, the controversy has grown further as it is intertwined with Japan’s concerns about the safety and discharge of the contaminated water into the sea, and conflicts over domestic nuclear power policies. About 1.29 million tons, as of March 24, 2022, of the contaminated water are generated, which is close to the 1.37 million tons of water storage capacity. In response, the Japanese government announced on April 13, 2021, that it plans to discharge the contaminated water into the sea from 2023. This study evaluates the amount of the contaminated water that has passed through the ALPS and reviews the preparations and related facilities for ocean discharge after diluting the contaminated water. In addition, it is intended to forecast the various impacts of ocean discharge.

The purpose of this study was to effectively purify U-contaminated soil-washing effluent using a precipitation/distillation process, reuse the purified water, and self-dispose of the generated solid. The U ions in the effluent were easily removed as sediments by neutralization, and the metal sediments and suspended soils were flocculated–precipitated by polyacrylamide (PAM). The precipitate generated through the flocculation–precipitation process was completely separated into solid–liquid phases by membrane filtration (pore size < 45 μm), and Ca2+ and Mg2+ ions remaining in the effluent were removed by distillation. Even if neutralized or distilled effluent was reused for soil washing, soil decontamination performance was maintained. PAM, an organic component of the filter cake, was successfully removed by thermal decomposition without loss of metal deposits including U. The uranium concentration of the residual solids after distillation is confirmed to be less than 1 Bq·g−1, so it is expected that the self-disposal of the residual solids is possible. Therefore, the treatment method of U-contaminated soil-washing effluent using the precipitation/distillation process presented in this study can be used to effectively treat the washing waste of U-contaminated soil and self-dispose of the generated solids.

After the Fukushima accident in 2011, a huge amount of radioactively contaminated water is being generated by cooling the melted fuel of units 1, 2 and 3. Most of contaminated water is seawater and underwater containing not only salt elements but also nuclear fission products with radioactivity. To treat the contaminated water, Cs/Sr removal facilities such as KURION and SARRY are being operated by TEPCO. Additionally, three ALPS facilities are on operation to meet the regularity standards for discharge to the sea. However, massive secondary wastes such as Zeolite, sludge and adsorbent is being generated by these facilities for liquid water treatment. The secondary wastes containing various radionuclide with Cs and Sr is difficult to store due to highly radioactive concentration and corrosive properties. In Japan, a variety of technologies such as GeoMelt vitrification, In-Can vitrification and CCIM vitrification is considered as a promising solution. In this study, they were reviewed, and the advantage and disadvantage of each technology were evaluated as the candidate technologies for thermal treatment of sludge radwaste.

Rolling contact fatigue(RCF) is a major cause of failure that appears in components of rolling contacts. In the recent years, the fatigue propagation and failure have been an important issue in respect of the safe operation and to reduce the noise and vibration of the rolling contact components. The water-contaminated lubrication is known to be one of the significant factors that reduces the lifetime of the rolling contact components. Thus, in this study, the effect of water-contaminated lubrication environment on the rolling contact fatigue was investigated. Bearing life testing was performed in two different lubrication conditions (i.e. normal lubrication environment and water-contaminated lubrication environment). The effect of the debirs on the rolling contact fatigue could be eliminated by establishing the debris filter system. Microscopic features of the rolling contact surfaces were examined using energy dispersive spectrometry and non-contact 3D measurement system. In the case of the water-contaminated lubrication, the increase of surface roughness values up to 17.6% was observed. The oxidation state and pattern of the rolling contact surfaces were very different depending on the lubrication environment. It was also found that the bearing rating life,   , was decreased significantly in the watercontaminated lubrication condition. The amount of reduction was about 49.7%.

본 연구에서는 역삼투막공정을 이용하여 수용액 중 저준위 방사성이온인 세슘과 요오드 이온을 제거하는 실험을 수행하였다. 국내에서 생산되는 역삼투막모듈 두 가지와 그리고 폐모듈 세정한 후 세슘과 요오드 이온에 대한 제거성능을 비 교하였다. 공급수의 농도와 압력을 달리하여 실험을 진행한 결과, 세 가지 모듈 모두 세슘에 비해 요오드의 제염계수가 높은 것을 알 수 있었으며, 특히, 세정한 모듈은 요오드에 대한 제염계수가 1140으로 확인되었다. 대체적으로 실험조건이 고압일 때보다 저압일 때 제염성능이 좋은 것으로 나타났으며 이는 저압조건에 가까운 압력을 갖는 수도수에 직접 모듈을 설치할 경우에도 사용이 가능하리라 판단되었다. 또한 EDTA와 SBS, NaOH, 마이크로버블 등을 사용하여 세정한 막의 제염성능이 세정 전의 제염성능보다 높아졌으며 저압, 저농도 조건에서 요오드에 대한 회수율이 세정 후에 6.3% 증가한 결과를 얻었다.