Abstract
Legacy liquid radioactive waste streams from the Cold War still exist and newly generated waste streams from nuclear power plants and research institutes go untreated and expose environmental hazards at many nuclear sites. The nature of the waste is diverse, depending upon the source or the process from which it originated. The most problematic waste streams include complex liquids such as organic (tri-butyl-phosphate TBP) solutions contaminated with Pu and U isotopes, mixed organic and aqueous sludge types, nitric and mixed acid waste streams, H-3 contaminated organic and aqueous streams, etc. Technological, environmental and economic challenges continue to exist for the treatment and disposal of such waste streams.
A proven technology since 2001 that has been applied to liquid radioactive waste (LRW) on a global basis provides one option as a low-cost solution to legacy streams, large and small volume complex LRW frequently found during decommissioning and standard operations at nuclear power plants, research institutes, medical waste centers and weapons sites. The engineered polymer technology from Nochar, USA, is capable of solidifying standard and highly complex LLW and ILW waste streams for interim or final storage, or for incineration.
