This power point covers the major information about radioactive waste management.

1. RADIOACTIVE
WASTE
MANAGEMENT
BY
ENOCH IRAIANBU C

2. WHAT IS A
RADIOACTIVE
WASTE?
• Radioactive wastes are waste
that contain radioactive
material.
• Radioactive wastes are usually
byproducts of nuclear power
generation and other
applications of nuclear fission
or nuclear technology, such as
research and medicine.

3. TYPES OF
RADIOACTIVE
WASTES
• Low - level waste
• Intermediate - level waste
• High - level waste
• Very low - level waste

5. RADIOACTIV
E WASTE
MANAGEMEN
T SOLUTIONS
In France, series of operations are
conducted for the management of
radioactive waste. These
operations include,
1. Sorting
2. Treatment and conditioning
3. Storage and disposal

6. SORTING
• This consists in separating
waste according to its different
properties, in particular; the
half-lives of the radionuclides it
contains.
• It also involves separating waste
that can be compacted or
melted down to reduce the
volume.

7. TREATMEN
T
• Different types of waste
undergo different types of
treatment (incineration,
calcination, cementation,
vitrification, etc.).
• It is then sealed in a container.
The result is a radioactive waste
package.

8. STORAGE AND
DISPOSAL
• Storage facilities are designed to
accommodate waste packages for
a limited period of time.
• Disposal is the final stage of the
waste management process and
implies that the packages have
reached their final destination or,
at least, that there is no intention
of retrieving them.

9. VITRIFICATION

10. Safely storing
nuclear waste
through
Vitrification
• One method of long-term storage and
disposal involves the processing and
transformation of the spent fuel into a glass,
a technique known as vitrification.
• It has been used for HLW immobilization for
over 40 years in most countries that have a
nuclear power program, including France,
Germany, Belgium, Russia, UK, Japan, and
the USA.
• Glass is desirable as a long-term storage
form as it is a relatively insoluble, compact
and solid. In this form it is easier to store
and handle, saving space and reducing
cost.

11. • Glass also possesses high chemical
durability, allowing it to remain in a
corrosive environment for thousands
or even millions of years without
failing.
• While glass is often thought of as a
fragile material, a properly treated
block of borosilicate glass is
incredibly resilient.

12. How vitrification works?
• The process of vitrification is quite simple but can be difficult to
execute. First, the waste is dried, then heated to convert the
nitrates to oxides.
• Glass-forming additives are added to the waste material and
heated again to around 1000 °C.
• The molten liquid is poured into a suitable containment vessel
to cool and form the glass. Once solidified, the final vitreous
product has incorporated the waste contaminants in its macro-
and micro-structure, and the hazardous waste constituents are
immobilized.

13. • The two main types of glass currently used to
immobilize nuclear waste are borosilicate and
alumino - phosphate glasses.
• Both of these materials allow high waste loadings
and can immobilize large amounts of actinides.
• For example, Borosilicate glasses can
accommodate up to 7.2 mass percent of PuO2.

14. METHODS OF RADIOACTIVE
WASTE DISPOSAL

15. ABOVE – GROUND
DISPOSAL
• Dry cask storage typically
involves taking waste from a
spent fuel pool and sealing it
(along with an inert gas) in
a steel cylinder, which is placed
in a concrete cylinder which
acts as a radiation shield.
• It is a relatively inexpensive
method which can be done at a
central facility or adjacent to the
source reactor. The waste can
be easily retrieved for
reprocessing.

16. GEOLOGIC
DISPOSAL
• The process of selecting
appropriate deep final
repositories for high level
waste and spent fuel is now
under way in several
countries.
• The basic concept is to
locate a large, stable
geologic formation and use
mining technology to
excavate a tunnel below the
surface where rooms or
vaults can be excavated for
disposal of high-level
radioactive waste.

17. • The goal is to permanently isolate nuclear waste from the human
environment.
• Currently, internationally preferred solution is for geological disposal by
interment in a mined and engineered, multi-barrier repository .
• Engineered disposal system has generally been constructed at or near
the surface for wastes with low-level radioactivity and wastes with short-
lived radioactivity.
• It is being built or is planned to built deep underground in geological
formation for high-level and long-lived wastes.

18. The wastes can be stored in a repository for a
long period of time.

19. RE-USE
• Another option is to find applications
for the isotopes in nuclear waste so as
to re-use them.
• Already, caesium-137, strontium-
90 and a few other isotopes are
extracted for certain industrial
applications such as food
irradiation and radioisotope
thermoelectric generators.
• While re-use does not eliminate the
need to manage radioisotopes, it can
reduce the quantity of waste produced.

20. SPACE DISPOSAL
• Space disposal is attractive
because it removes nuclear
waste from the planet.
• It has significant
disadvantages, such as the
potential for catastrophic
failure of a launch vehicle,
which could spread
radioactive material into
the atmosphere and
around the world.

21. • A high number of launches would be required
because no individual rocket would be able to
carry very much of the material relative to the
total amount that needs to be disposed of.
• This makes the proposal impractical economically
and it increases the risk of at least one or more
launch failures.
• Costs and inadequate reliability of modern rocket
launch systems for space disposal has been one of
the motives for interest in non-rocket space
launch systems such as mass drivers, space
elevators, and other proposals.

22. CONCLUSION
• Disposal of radioactive waste is a
complex issue, not only because
of the nature of the waste but
also because of the regularity
structure for dealing with
radioactive waste.
• I believe that India has achieved
self reliance in the management
of all types of radioactive waste.
• And ongoing effort to upgrade
technology to minimize
radioactive discharge is on.

23. THANK YOU