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Reactor environment during the Fukushima nuclear accident inferred from radiocaesium-bearing microparticles
Radiocaesium-bearing microparticles (CsMPs), which are substantially silicate glass, were formed inside the damaged reactor and released to the environment by the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant accident in March 2011. The present study reports several valuable findings regarding their compos...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6987194/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31992831 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-58464-y |
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author | Okumura, Taiga Yamaguchi, Noriko Suga, Hiroki Takahashi, Yoshio Segawa, Hiroyo Kogure, Toshihiro |
author_facet | Okumura, Taiga Yamaguchi, Noriko Suga, Hiroki Takahashi, Yoshio Segawa, Hiroyo Kogure, Toshihiro |
author_sort | Okumura, Taiga |
collection | PubMed |
description | Radiocaesium-bearing microparticles (CsMPs), which are substantially silicate glass, were formed inside the damaged reactor and released to the environment by the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant accident in March 2011. The present study reports several valuable findings regarding their composition and structure using advanced microanalytical techniques. X-ray absorption near-edge structure of Fe L(3)-absorption indicated that the oxidation state of the iron dissolved in the glass matrix of the CsMPs was originally nearly divalent, suggesting that the atmosphere in which the CsMPs were formed during the accident was considerably reductive. Another major finding is that sodium, which has not been recognised as a constituent element of CsMPs thus far, is among the major elements in the glass matrix. The atomic percent of Na is higher than that of other alkali elements such as K and Cs. Furthermore, halite (NaCl) was found as an inclusion inside a CsMP. The existence of Na in CsMPs infers that seawater injected for cooling might reach the inside of the reactor before or during the formation of the CsMPs. These results are valuable to infer the environment inside the reactor during the accident and the debris materials to be removed during the decommissioning processes. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6987194 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-69871942020-02-03 Reactor environment during the Fukushima nuclear accident inferred from radiocaesium-bearing microparticles Okumura, Taiga Yamaguchi, Noriko Suga, Hiroki Takahashi, Yoshio Segawa, Hiroyo Kogure, Toshihiro Sci Rep Article Radiocaesium-bearing microparticles (CsMPs), which are substantially silicate glass, were formed inside the damaged reactor and released to the environment by the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant accident in March 2011. The present study reports several valuable findings regarding their composition and structure using advanced microanalytical techniques. X-ray absorption near-edge structure of Fe L(3)-absorption indicated that the oxidation state of the iron dissolved in the glass matrix of the CsMPs was originally nearly divalent, suggesting that the atmosphere in which the CsMPs were formed during the accident was considerably reductive. Another major finding is that sodium, which has not been recognised as a constituent element of CsMPs thus far, is among the major elements in the glass matrix. The atomic percent of Na is higher than that of other alkali elements such as K and Cs. Furthermore, halite (NaCl) was found as an inclusion inside a CsMP. The existence of Na in CsMPs infers that seawater injected for cooling might reach the inside of the reactor before or during the formation of the CsMPs. These results are valuable to infer the environment inside the reactor during the accident and the debris materials to be removed during the decommissioning processes. Nature Publishing Group UK 2020-01-28 /pmc/articles/PMC6987194/ /pubmed/31992831 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-58464-y Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
spellingShingle | Article Okumura, Taiga Yamaguchi, Noriko Suga, Hiroki Takahashi, Yoshio Segawa, Hiroyo Kogure, Toshihiro Reactor environment during the Fukushima nuclear accident inferred from radiocaesium-bearing microparticles |
title | Reactor environment during the Fukushima nuclear accident inferred from radiocaesium-bearing microparticles |
title_full | Reactor environment during the Fukushima nuclear accident inferred from radiocaesium-bearing microparticles |
title_fullStr | Reactor environment during the Fukushima nuclear accident inferred from radiocaesium-bearing microparticles |
title_full_unstemmed | Reactor environment during the Fukushima nuclear accident inferred from radiocaesium-bearing microparticles |
title_short | Reactor environment during the Fukushima nuclear accident inferred from radiocaesium-bearing microparticles |
title_sort | reactor environment during the fukushima nuclear accident inferred from radiocaesium-bearing microparticles |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6987194/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31992831 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-58464-y |
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