Radiation risksDecontaminating radiation-laced water at Fukushima Daiichi

Workers on scaffolding around water decontamination equipment // Source: megaplotek.pl

Thanks to special radiation devices, made by UOP LLC, a Honeywell company, cleanup crews in Japan have been able to treat five million gallons of water contaminated by radiation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Following the devastating 11 March earthquake and tsunami, the nuclear reactors at Fukushima Daiichi were badly damaged and emergency crews were forced to pump millions of gallons of water into the reactor units to keep them from melting down.

Now that the reactors have been stabilized, cleanup crews must figure out how to safely process the millions of gallons of water contaminated with radiation.

“There is nothing like this, on this scale, that we have ever attempted to do before,” saidRobert Alvarez, a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Energy Department, in reference to safely disposing of the radiation-laced water.

To that end, UOP’s Simplified Active Water Retrieve and Recovery System (SARRY), which relies on ion exchanging technology to remove radioactive materials from water, has helped support the cleanup effort. Using crystalline materials that can selectively remove radioactive ions from liquids, the UOP system has helped reduce radioactive cesium to non-detectable levels.

“Honeywell’s UOP is proud that our advanced ion exchange products are successfully supporting the efforts to treat the contaminated water and helping to prevent further damage at the Fukushima plant and surrounding areas,” said Mike Millard, vice president and general manager of Catalysts, Adsorbents, and Specialties for Honeywell’s UOP.
The SARRY system was developed in conjunction with Toshiba, Shaw, and AVANTECH, Inc. and has been in operation for more than three months.