Kapok fiber composites minimizing secondary waste and disposal costs for large-scale radioactive liquid treatment

초록

Conventional liquid treatments for large-scale, low-level radioactive wastewater, such as ion exchange and waste solidification, face challenges due to the large amounts of secondary waste and high disposal costs. A new largescale decontamination method is proposed that uses kapok fiber composites for rapid radionuclide adsorption and high volume reduction to minimize secondary waste. The composite consists of natural zeolite and kapok holocellulose, which has high water-soaking ability and low-temperature pyrolysis. The kapok composites, fabricated using a commercial wet-laid nonwoven manufacturing process, absorbs 99% of low-level radioactive cesium in 20 min, reducing the volume by 98% and the weight by 47% at 300 degrees C. The low-temperature pyrolysis process below 300 degrees C prevents cesium desorption and gasification by avoiding zeolite destruction. The massproducible kapok composites can be used for adsorbing various radionuclides in large-scale wastewater by attaching specific adsorbents for target isotopes to the composites.

키워드