Proposal that can be useful at nuclear power plants, for example, at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant in Japan.

Cleaning of radioactive water contaminated with radioactive nuclides

Composite material, particles SiC&Fe₃O₄, in the present of an inerton field form dynamical clusters.

The quantity of this composite material needed to clean 1 liter of radioactive water (for instance, with the radioactivity 35,500 Bq per litre, which was measured at the Fukushima) to technical water (with the radioactivity 10 Bq per litre) varies from 3 to 5 grams.

How does the technology work?

Radioactive water slowly moves through a reactor zone to which periodically is added the mentioned composite material. Inner walls of the reactor are provided with irradiators of an inerton field. In the presence of an inerton field with given physical parameters the particles SiC&Fe₃O₄ begin to coagulate starting from the bottom of the reactor zone. Clusters made of this composite material gradually grow forming dynamic structures that extend up to the top wall of the reactor zone. During the growth of such extended cluster network, the composite material shows extremely active sorbent properties: the forming cluster network of particles SiC&Fe₃O₄ absorbs practically all the radioactive nuclides available in water passing through the reactor zone.

The cluster network is growing during 10 to 15 minutes. Only in this time the clusters network is active to absorb radioactive nuclides. After this time the cluster network becomes solid and falls down to the bottom of the reactor as a residue that absorbed all the radioactive nuclides extracted from water.

The residue is removed from the reactor.

A fresh portion of composite material SiC&Fe₃O₄ is added to the reactor zone and contaminated water is cleaned again.

One module is able to clean 100 litres of water per hour. In principle, the technology can be scaled to 1 tonne of contaminated water per hour, or this capacity can be reached by using a few modules.

The capacity of power unit supplying electric power to injectors of inerton filed is about 1 kW.