RUSSIA BEYOND THE HEADLINES
Science
A global media project, sponsored by Rossiyskaya Gazeta (Russia) asia.rbth.com
13
Environment Russian scientists discover a new technology for quick decontamination of radioactive water
New tech for Fukushima waste Radioactivity can be decontaminated in less than an hour, according to new findings at Russia’s Prokhorov General Physics Institute in Moscow.
6
SVETLANA ARKHANGELSKAYA
FACTS ABOUT RADIATION
SPECIAL TO RBTH
1
In 1942 the world’s first nuclear reactor was built under the football field at the University of Chicago, in the US. At that time, this type of equipment was used to as an under-the-hood for nuclear bombs.
GETTY IMAGES
This year, a research group led by Georgy Shafeyev from the Russian Academy of Sciences’s Prokhorov General Physics Institute announced that it had discovered a new way to rapidly decontaminate certain types of nuclear waste. The group has said that certain radioactive elements can be quickly converted into neutral substances if placed in particular chemical solutions and exposed to light from lasers. The discovery, the group says, was accidental and happened during nanoparticle experiments. In the experiments, radioactive substances appeared to be literally knocked out of metal when placed in certain aqueous solutions, which prompted the researchers to go on to experiment with a variety of metals and solutions. When Shafeyev and his colleagues put gold in a solution of radioactive Thorium 232, for example, they found that the thorium stopped emitting radiation. Cesium-137, a major pollutant from the nuclear accident at Fukushima, Japan, is a radioactive isotope produced by nuclear fission. This powerful radioactive pollutant spreads easily, is highly soluble and normally has a half-life of around 30 years. However, when the experiment was done with Cesium 137, the dangerous isotope was turned into
Victims of nuclear accidents FUKUSHIMA, JAPAN
This devastating accident in 2001 caused the meltdown of three reactors, which resulted in the worst radiation contamination being concentrated within several hundred kilometres of the plant, especially to the northwest of the facility. CHERNOBYL, UKRAINE
In 1986, this nuclear acci-
dent affected at least 6 million people in the area and has been estimated to have caused between 4,000 to 93,000 premature deaths. MAILUU-SUU, KYRGZSTAN
This project produces radiation from large-scale uranium mining and processing activities. It caused around 1.96 million cubic metres of nuclear waste in the area.
In 1992, 1,000 cubic metres of radioactive waste spilled into the river when a landslide broke open one of the dumps. The waste contaminated the Mailuu-Suu River, which is the water source for more than 2 million people. SEMIPALATINSK, KAZAKHSTAN
More than 456 nuclear tests were carried out from 194989 here — the highest num-
ber of nuclear explosions in one area in the world. Some 200,000 residents are currently suffering health effects from these explosions today. One in every 20 children in the area is born with serious deformities, cancer rates are higher than in other areas and more than half of the local population has died before reaching 60.
2
Every human body is radioactive. We all contain Carbon-14, which has a half-life of nearly 6000 years.
3
On June 27, 1954, the world’s first nuclear power plant started operation at the Soviet city of Obninsk near Moscow. On April 29, 2002 it was shut down. In its 48 years of operations there were no significant incidents.
4 neutral Barium in just one hour, according to the research group. “Neither we, nor nuclear scientists, are yet able to provide a scientific explanation of this phenomena,” said Shafeyev, who is head of the Academy of Sciences’ Laboratory of Macrokinetics of Nonequilibrium Processes. “Most likely, by placing the solution in these conditions, we’ve been able to change the environment of the nuclei of the atoms – the state of the outer shells of electrons.” To enable this process, Shafeyev said, the solution
had to contain a refractory metal, like gold, silver or titanium.“The rate of decay of a substance depends on the chemical environment – the outer electrons of its atoms,” he explained. “We are changing their electron configuration because the nanoparticles are able to locally enhance the laser electromagnetic field.” Shafeyev’s team is currently waiting for their results to be tested by the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) – another Moscow research centre. For the experiment, JINR scientists will use a sensi-
tive gamma-ray spectrometer based on ultra-pure germanium to watch the process in real time. The experiment will be done with Cesium 137. Some are sceptical about the claims of the research group and are doubtful that the JINR experiments will work. “We need to see this process with our own eyes, and then look for an explanation,” says Sarkis Karamyan, a senior researcher at the Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions at JINR. The researchers who made the discovery, however, are already looking at
specific applications for their findings. They have said it is unlikely that it could be used for ground contamination, in places like Chernobyl, because the penetrating power of lasers in soil is measured in micrometers. But when dealing with radiatiation-contaminated water, it could be useful. “In other words, in Fukushima, where Tritium and Cesium continue to pour out of the [plant’s decontamination] pool even today, this kind of development could solve a lot of problems,” Shafeyev said.
Out of the 170 grams of Potassium in the adult human body, around 20mg of it is radioactive Potassium-40.
5
The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant (Niigata Prefecture, Japan) is the world’s largest nuclear generating station. It has seven reactors, which provide 8,212 net power.
6
Men are more radioactive than women — men have more muscle fibre than women, and muscle fibre is where the body concentrates Potassium.