The Potential Application of Soil Washing to the Treatment of Radioactively Contaminated Soils, Rubble and Rocks From UKAEA’s Sites

Laboratory and pilot scale tests have been carried out to assess the potential application of soil washing to the treatment of radioactively contaminated soil, rubble and rocks from its sites.

With radioactively contaminated soils it was difficult to clean to a free release level (<0.4 Bq/g), although it was possible to clean to a risk based target, or to a waste categorised as Very Low Radioactive Material.

With radioactively contaminated rubble and rocks, wet scrubbing in a tumbling mill was very effective at removing surface contamination so that the products could be disposed as free release material or Very Low Radioactive Material.