Speaker
Description
Radioactive waste must be properly immobilized to reduce the migration potential of contaminants and facilitate the waste’s handling from storage to disposal. Cement is the most common matrix for low-level waste, but new technologies are emerging, such as alkali-activated materials, called "geopolymer". Geopolymers have been considered as an immobilization matrix for radioactive waste due to a range of benefits, like less emission of greenhouse gases when compared to cement, good mechanical properties and resistance to fire and acids. Some authors compared both materials using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Methodology for construction purposes. LCA Methodology is a tool for studying environmental aspects and potential impacts on the life of a product by the combination of software and databases to calculate different environmental impacts. The comparison of both matrixes for their use in radioactive waste immobilization is not reported in the literature yet. The global warming has been globally discussed and this discussion needs to enter in the nuclear area. This work aims the comparison between cement and geopolymer using the LCA Methodology, to evaluate if geopolymer is a more sustainable alternative to cement for radioactive waste immobilization. This study may lead to new formulations for geopolymer to assure its sustainable characteristics.
