September 10-14 , 2007

Dan Perera of ANSTO, as the Chief Scientific Investigator for Australia, attended a meeting in Moscow, 10-14 September 2007 organised by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to discuss a new Coordinated Research Project (CRP) on “Behaviour of Cementitious Materials in Long Term Storage and Disposal of Radioactive Waste”. IAEA organises CRPs to tackle important radioactive related problems occurring in member countries. Under this CRP 20 individual projects from 17 countries were selected. Countries participating in the CRP are, Belgium, Brazil, Czech Republic, France, India, Korea, Romania, Russian Federation, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, China, Spain and Australia.

During the meeting the participants visited the Radon nuclear waste immobilisation/containment facility outside Moscow. Radon is a highly profitable independent company owned by the Moscow city looking after the safety of its citizens from radioactive and hazardous waste. They carry out contract work on conditioning/immobilising radioactive waste, high, intermediate and low-level waste and hazardous waste from Russian nuclear power plants and industry. They also do contract work for other countries.

Alldeco Ltd. of Slovakia has immobilised and solidified sludges and ion exchange resins in geopolymers and deposited these in their repository. Their regulatory body gave them permission 4 years ago to place geopolymers in the repository. Also the Czech Nuclear Authority (SUJB) has accepted geopolymers for radioactive waste solidification.

Enlargement of the sludge at the bottom of a spent nuclear fuel rod storage. This sludge was immobilised/solidified in a geopolymers matrix of trade name SIAL by AllDeco Ltd. of Slovakia. They have been placed in their repository since 2003 (photo curtsey of AllDeco Ltd.).

The CRP will run for 3 years with the countries collaborating in six research topics. The work will be published as IAEA reports and as publications in journals and conferences. Most of the participants are highly experienced scientists and engineers in using low and intermediate-level waste. The experienced gained by ANSTO will be useful in planning the proposed low/intermediate-level radioactive waste repository in the Northern Territory.

Some of the participants at the IAEA meeting in Moscow attended by Dan Perera in September 2007.