immobilization of low and intermediate level of organic radioactive wastes in cement matrices

Spent liquid scintillator cocktails which originated from liquidscintillation counting technique are containing radioactive nuclides andclassified as one of the most problematic wastes. This can be attributed topossessing both of specific radioactive contaminants and their organicnature. However, special options should be developed to address thesecharacteristics of these wastes. Solidificationlstabilization (S/S) of thesewastes in cement is oriented to prevent the return of the harmful radioactivematerials to the environment during the disposal of these wastes keeping thesurrounding environment clean and tidy for man and has cominggenerations.The present study aims to immobilization of the spent organic liquidscintillator wastes (LSW) collected and segregated at the Nuclear ResearchCenter, Egyptian Atomic Energy in cement matrices which contain naturalclay as admixture. This work is a part of comprehensive program stated andcarried out at the Radioisotopes Department since 1970.The performance of the candidate final waste form (FWF) thatcomposed from cement matrix mixed at w/c ratio 0.3 with 3% natural clay,relative to the weight of cement powder as admixture, and immobilized upto 15% from LSW, relative to the weight of the cement paste, was evaluatedafter curing under different conditions.Based on the experiments data, it could be concluding that, there areprime encouraging indications that the candidate FWF can be an adequatemonolith for solidificationlstabilization up to 15% of actual spent LSW,relative to the weight of the cement paste, and comply with therequirements of the disposal process even in at very exaggeratingconditions.