Scientists say ceramics could store nuclear waste permanently

August 3, 2000
Web posted at: 3:50 PM EDT (1950 GMT)

By Correspondent David George

LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico (CNN) -- Nuclear waste can remain radioactive for centuries, but up until now barrels used to store it have had a lifespan of only 100 years. U.S. scientists, however, think they may have found a better way to safely store the dangerous atomic waste for thousands of years.

Spent fuel rods from U.S. nuclear power plants -- scientists call "high-level nuclear waste" -- is the stuff that will not die. It is a problem the nuclear industry has never solved to the satisfaction of its critics.

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Each nuclear power plant generates an average of 20 metric tons of highly radioactive waste each year, waste that will emit deadly radiation for decades, perhaps even centuries.

Currently, spent fuel rods are stored in drums and other containers. The long-range plan is to entomb them inside Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

But that controversial plan is a long way from being implemented.

And even if the waste is buried forever, one burning problem remains: What happens in the future when the steel drums deteriorate and the still-radioactive rods come in contact with the Earth?

Nuclear waste might be safely stored for thousands of years with the help of new crystalline materials

Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory think they may have found the answer.

"We have proposed a set of materials, a set of crystaline ceramic oxides, which appear to have very high radiation tolerance," said research scientist Kurt Sickafus.

In a series of experiments, some involving computer simulations, some conducted in the laboratory at extremely cold temperatures, Sickafus and his colleagues found that a class of ceramic crystals called "fluorites" could stand up to radiation.

The atoms in the fluorite compounds actually move around, in effect jumping out of the way of deadly radioactive isotopes, without breaking down.

That keeps radiation from escaping. The Los Alamos scientists think that combining radioactive waste with crystaline fluorite ceramic oxides could produce a material that, while radioactive, would never contaminate.

"So you're essentially in the end relying on the high stability of these rock-like oxides to hold your radioactive constituents and keep them out of any environmental situations where they would come back to interact with the living environment," Sickafus said.

Los Alamos researchers say more work is needed to come up with just the right chemical combination to produce the most durable ceramic crystal for long-term nuclear waste storage.

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Los Alamos National Laboratory

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