Pradisposal Management Of Lantern Mantle Fabrication Waste Containing Thorium

Abstract:

Farication of lantern mantle will generate radioactive waste containing thorium. thorium has half long lived radionuclides and the decay will generate thoron gas that is harmful to humans, therefore thorium waste must be mananged properly.

Conditioning is one of the stage pradisposal selected for processing waste containing thorium. The concept of conditioning is done by considering the fact that until now there is no specific criteria in thorium waste management, so that conditioning should be done with the principle of ease of dismantling of packaging waste that has been conditioned in the future. Radioactive Waste Technology Center has been doing conditioning thorium waste by entering the waste into a polythylene drum and then polythylene drums containing thorium wastes inserted into the carbon stell drums. Space between the drum polythylene and carbon steel drums filled with concrete and in the top of polythylene drums were given activated charcoal and then closed and stored in a temporary storage. It should be noted degradation of waste containers in storage temporarily. Base on the results of monitoring of external and internal radiation doses and environmental monitoring associated with the pradisposal management of waste containing thorium, it can be concluded that the safety of workers to the radiation risk was still within safe limits.

Keywords: Predisposal, lantern mantle, thorium, conditioning.

Aisyah

Pusat Teknologi Limbah Radioaktif-Batan

Kawasan Puspiptek, Tangerang Selatan 15310

E-mail: aisyah@batan.go.id