LILW BITUMINIZATION PROGRAMMME AT SIA “RADON”: WASTE FORM PERFORMANCE

Waste blocks were prepared in bituminization plants on base of NPP-operational and other liquid wastes of low and intermediate level activity and tested under laboratory and wet near-surface disposal conditions. Leach rates of radioactive and non radioactive waste components and depth of radionuclide penetration into the host loamy soil were estimated. Bituminized waste seems to occupy a middle position between cemented and vitrified waste forms in terms of radionuclide retention ability. However, properties of bitumen as a waste matrix are not fully understood for modelling the waste form behavior over the required time period of several hundred years