Nuclear decontamination of cementitious materials by electrokinetics: An experimental study

The objective of this paper is to evaluate the efficiency of an electrokinetic method of radionuclide removal from a cement-based material. This work is a two-part process. In the first part, a sample of mortar was uniformly contaminated for use as a reference. In order to ensure a uniform contamination, the ingress of the radioelement (cesium) was controlled by an external electrical field. The second part of this work concerns the removal of cesium from the contaminated mortar samples. This second, decontamination, phase was driven by the same electrical field. No electroosmosis was detected. Both phases were characterized by analyses of cesium and calcium concentrations in cathodic and anodic solutions, and by measurements of cesium content in the samples at the end of each phase. In addition to the electrical current, pH, and conductivity were measured during the experiments. Finally, the efficiency of the electrokinetic method was described in terms of decontamination factor, leading to promising results.