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Undeclared uranium hitches a ride on cobalt exports from Congo, study says
Philippe (left) and Manzuk quantified the amount of uranium that has been exported from the DRC in cobalt shipments or left behind in the environment. (Photo: Joel Hallberg/UW–Madison)
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Princeton University have published a study in Nature Communications that calls attention to a blind spot in nuclear nonproliferation: The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has exported thousands of metric tons of uranium, and there is no accounting for where it has gone.
In partnership with Lighthouse Reports and the Financial Times, UW–Madison nuclear engineering professor and nuclear security expert Sébastien Philippe and Ryan Manzuk, a geologist and research fellow in Philippe’s group and at Princeton, conducted the study using countrywide mineralization and geochemical data.
Xiaonan Liu, Yi Ding, Xirui Lu
Nuclear Technology | Volume 198 | Number 1 | April 2017 | Pages 64-69
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2017.1292810
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In this work, the immobilization of simulated radionuclide 90Sr by fly ash-slag-metakaolin–based geopolymer was investigated. It was found that the thermal stability (high-temperature and freeze-thaw resistance) of the geopolymer waste forms were better than that of cement. The geopolymer waste forms can acquire a compressive strength up to 10 MPa after 2 h calcination at 1000°C. Furthermore, the leaching tests revealed that the fly ash-slag-metakaolin–based geopolymer waste forms had lower cumulative fraction leaching rates of 90Sr than that of cement. These results gave encouragement for the idea that the fly ash-slag-metakaolin–based geopolymers could be used as low cost and high efficiency host materials for the immobilization of radioactive wastes.
