The Treatment and Disposal of Radioactive Liquid Waste and Solid Waste in Nuclear Power Plants

Yang Jingyuan; Yao Xiaoqi; Ye Li; Jin Hairui; Wang Yi

doi:10.7536/PC20250108

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Prog Chem ›› 2025, Vol. 37 ›› Issue (9) : 1373-1383. DOI: 10.7536/PC20250108

Review

The Treatment and Disposal of Radioactive Liquid Waste and Solid Waste in Nuclear Power Plants

Yang Jingyuan ¹^,² ,
Yao Xiaoqi ¹ ,
Ye Li ³ ,
Jin Hairui ³ ,
Wang Yi ¹^,^*

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Abstract

The increasing proportion of nuclear energy in China’s energy resources has brought about a series of difficulties and challenges. Nuclear power plants generate a large amount of radioactive liquid and solid waste during operation， and how to effectively treat and dispose of them has become a research focus. For radioactive liquid waste， the current main treatment processes in China are ion exchange and barrel evaporation drying. In addition， chemical precipitation， membrane technology， and other emerging technologies are also the current research directions for combined treatment. For solid waste， radioactive ions are tightly bound to solid materials， making it difficult for decontamination and regulatory release. Currently， solidification and compression are used for disposal in China， especially for mixed waste resins， which have large output and high radiation dose， as well as water absorption and elasticity， the main method in China is to use hot state overpressure technology to improve the volume reduction ratio， and then package and dispose of it geologically.

Contents

1 Background

2 Treatment of radioactive liquid waste

2.1 Radioactive wastewater

2.2 Treatment methods of radioactive liquid waste

3 Disposal of radioactive solid waste

4 Summary

4.1 Treatment technologies for liquid waste

4.2 Disposal of solid waste

5 Prospect

5.1 Research directions for the treatment of radioactive liquid waste

5.2 Research directions for radioactive solid waste

Key words

radioactive waste liquid / radioactive solid waste / radioactive waste treatment technology

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Yang Jingyuan , Yao Xiaoqi , Ye Li , et al . The Treatment and Disposal of Radioactive Liquid Waste and Solid Waste in Nuclear Power Plants[J]. Progress in Chemistry. 2025, 37(9): 1373-1383 https://doi.org/10.7536/PC20250108

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