What would be the final disposal of radioactive waste after it is completely decaye. Are decayed radio nucleid chemically inert or it has chemical effects?
All radioactive isotopes decay to a stable isotope. The stable isotope has the chemical characteristics of that element. Uranium becomes Pb. H-3 becomes He-3. The usual precautions apply for any final element.
Joseph L Alvarez Thank you for your answer. My concern is for radioactive iostopes used for medical purposes. According to you, such stable isotopes cannot be disposed simply as a normal waste instead need special treatment. Do you suggest incineration as an ultimate treatment. Do you have any guidelines or protocols that I could refer for final disposal of stable isotopes. Thank you
1) https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/te_1183_prn.pdf
2) Article An overview of radioactive waste disposal procedures of a nu...
Please ask the 'Strahlenschutzbeauftragten nach Strahlenschutzverordnung' of your institution or one of their colleagues at University Hohenheim (they were dealing with radioactive material at least some years ago) and obey the rules of German Strahlenschutzverordnung:
https://www.google.de/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=2ahUKEwjxjafdyoTjAhWzwAIHHf2FBAsQFjAAegQIARAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gesetze-im-internet.de%2Fstrlschv_2018%2FStrlSchV.pdf&usg=AOvVaw0E3BQGm2uu2dKSExmKeCSd
I must admitt that this text is very tough to read....and to understand...
By the way: disposal or radioactive waste is one thing.
Handling , permission of handling and buying of radioactive material are other things which have to be in accordance with the German Strahlenschutzverordnung.
After decay of all isotopes should be stable and about dealing as the chemical elements. On other hand, more isotopes are needing to long time to obtain stable as U238 etc. In this situation you have to assess the activity concentration by Bq/Kg. The IAEA is establishing of limitation of radioactive waste to disposal depend of the abundance and half life. For example, Ra-226 t1/2= 1600 yrs the activity concentrations should be less than 1000Bq/Kg or 1Bq/g you can disposal safety in environment. Please review the IAEA publication in this filed.
Fahad Ibraheem Almasoud . Thank you. As I mentioned earlier this is for medical applications where half life is basically less than one months. My concern is only the final disposal after its activity is very very low. What is the best practic?. I know incineration and encapsulation to store in near-surface. But this is not applicable if land availability is scarce.
Gerhard Martens . Danke für Ihre antwort. This is not for Germany but for the hospitals in Nepal. There is no specific guidelines for handling medical radioactive waste. Thank you
The chemical concentration of medical radionuclides (T1/2 of weeks or months) is very low. After their nearly complete decay, when the activity is below the clearance level, they normally do not need any special treatment. Most often the solvent, and the objects (syringes, tissues, ...) that were initially contaminated, are also harmless from the point of view of radiation after radioactive decay.
Very often all of this is incinerated or evacuated with normal waste, after controlling the absence of residual activity. The hospital generally has its own incinerator, with filtered exhaust , the filter being a protection against the dissemination of bacteriological and chemical risk, which is also efficient if any residual activity is missed by the controls. A control of the absence of activity on the filter should be organised before any manipulation of the filter.
The radioactivity control after full decay should be carefully designed and executed, especially when sources of low-penetrating radiation (beta, low-E photons) are used.
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