Nuclear waste burns the container
2007/02/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria
Keeping nuclear waste safe for thousands of years is more difficult than experts expected. To this conclusion, physicists from the University of Cambridge have arrived, analyzing the influence of radiation on one of the materials used to store waste.
Ceramic materials with crystalline structure are believed to be the most suitable for storing nuclear waste. To prevent radiation from escaping should remain for an extremely long time: 250,000 years in the case of plutonium-239. However, alpha radiation emitted by Plutonium-239 alters the structure of the investigated material and has been shown to deteriorate earlier than they thought.
