An Introduction to Nuclear Waste Immobilisation (ISBN 0080444628)

Understanding Radioactive Materials and How to "Imprison" Them:
Ojovan and Lee provide a solid introduction to the nature of radioactivity. They include a useful table of radioactive isotopes and their specific activities (pp. 18-20), expressed in terms of Ci/g. They also provide a fair amount of detail on the doses arising from natural background radiation. Various models (e. g., linear) of the carcinogenic effects of radiation are also considered. The authors focus on environmentally-significant isotopes such as Tritium, Cobalt-60, Strontium-90, and Caesium-137. Various nuclear disasters are discussed, notably the one at Chernobyl. Waters that are contaminated with radioactive isotopes can be "cleaned" by several methods. Ojovan and Lee focus on chemical methods in their Chapter 14, but do not consider bioremediation methods. Only the latter portion of the book is actually devoted to the immobilization of radioactive wastes. Radioactive isotopes can be "locked up" in various cements, bituminous materials, vitreous substances, crystalline waste-forms (such as monazite, pyrochlore, Synroc, etc.), various metallic substances, etc. The authors compare different substances as to their efficacy for waste immobilization, and additionally focus on such things as leach rate, radiation-induced damage to the substances, and retention times for wastes.