Management of radioactive waste: from transmutation to bioremediation

A topical meeting on emerging technologies for the treatment of nuclear and radioactive waste with special emphasis on potentialities of new accelerator projects in the field

Among the various issues arising from the nuclear question, the one which has by far the deepest impact on public opinion is certainly the safe treatment of nuclear waste from energy production plants, and more generally of radioactive waste from industry, research and medicine.

Until now, the only world-wide adopted method is the storage in geological repositories, while the physical methods, like partitioning and transmutation through accelerator- or reactor-based facilities are still experimental. The main objective of R&D in the area of accelerator driven systems (ADS) is the realization of a device offering fastest rate of incinerating the plutonium & minor actinides to dispose the radiotoxic spent nuclear fuel of Uranium cycle. In many member states of the nuclear ‘club’, the disposal of spent nuclear fuel is fast becoming a vexed issue for continuing with nuclear power generation. The topical area of ADS, thus, assumes an important role in the sustainability of nuclear energy.

Besides the production of high- and intermediate level radioactive waste, the environmental impact of nuclear energy plants and (in some countries) of nuclear weapon complexes has been huge, with immense volumes of contaminated water, debris and soils. Potential methods other than the ones of standard physics and chemistry aroused considerable interest, namely those offered by structural microbiology. Over the past two decades, it has become widely accepted that microorganisms, and to a lesser extent plants, can transform and degrade many types of contaminants, including highly dangerous radionuclides.

The term 'bioremediation' became popular also in the field of safe treatment of radioactive waste, with an impressive growth of activities.

We at INFN are organizing a topical meeting on these subjects, with special emphasis on both physical and biological methods, to be held in Frascati on April, the 23rd, 2012.