SERECO has developed a treatment technique for grounds radiated by low intensity radioactive isotopes, which is based on the concentration of contamination on a minimum fraction of the treated ground.
The radioactive residues are classified by their levels of radioactivity and for the time the time they take to diminish their activity. In function of their parameters they can be:
High-Level Waste: These are long-lived radionuclides that generate large amounts of heat. It is the fuel of nuclear power plants and its activity takes several thousand years to reach a level that is not harmful to health.
Low and Intermediate Level Waste: These contain low or medium concentrations of radionuclides with a short half-life, generally less than 30 years. These wastes cease to be hazardous to health in several hundred years and can therefore be stored in nuclear cemeteries.
Very Low Level Waste: this is contaminated ash and debris of large volume and low radioactive activity. They are also harmful to human health, take several tens of years to reduce their activity and it is generally sufficient to avoid the proximity of people and their dispersion in the environment.
SERECO has developed a treatment technique for soils contaminated by low activity isotopes that aims to reduce the volume of waste to be stored.
Soil contamination by radioactive isotopes is a global problem, both because of the volume of radiologically contaminated soils worldwide, and because of the difficulty in their management and treatment.
The treatment technique developed by SERECO aims at reducing the volume of waste to be stored in special tanks and is focused on soils contaminated by low-level waste.
These mainly originate during the operation and dismantling of nuclear power plants, although this type of contamination also originates, to a lesser extent, in other industrial facilities that handle radioactive products. The most common radioactive isotopes are cesium-137 (Cs-137) and strontium-90 (Sr-90).
