A preview of this full-text is provided by Springer Nature.
Content available from SN Applied Sciences
This content is subject to copyright. Terms and conditions apply.
Vol.:(0123456789)
SN Applied Sciences (2019) 1:1319 | https://doi.org/10.1007/s42452-019-1391-6
Research Article
The astonishing 63Ni radioactivity reduction inradioactive wastes
bymeans ofultrasounds application
AlbertoRosada1· FabioCardone2,3· PasqualeAvino4
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
Abstract
Nowadays, the radioactive wastes production is certainly one of the main issues along with their storage. The most
interesting way to treat them would certainly be the radioactivity reduction. In this paper we show that the 63Ni radio-
activity reduction by ultrasounds is not a violation of the exponential decay law but can be explained by the Deformed
Space–Time theory. The cavitation procedure under the DST conditions achieves a radioactivity decrease around 14%
in 200s. Comparing these results with the theoretical ones obtained by the decay law, we earn more than 20years in
the 63Ni radioactivity decrease. For conrming the data, ICP-MS measurements were performed on cavitated and no-
cavitated samples: once again, the 14%-dierence (with CV 5%) was obtained from the analyses of both samples. Even
if the data are not denitive, the new idea is that a radioactive substance can be “normalized” by its transformation into
a normal stable one without radiation emission overcoming the traditional approaches (dilution, inertization, radioac-
tive transmutation with fast neutron irradiation) and avoiding the use of large deposits or big reactors. Our results may
be considered as starting point to pave the way to new methods to treat useless harmful radioactive substances from
nuclear or medicine industry.
Keywords Radioactivity·
63Ni· Reduction· Ultrasounds· Cavitation· Decay law
1 Introduction
The management of radioactive waste is one of the main
problems for the to-day mankind: during these last dec-
ades expensive and hard-realization proposals for achiev-
ing minor actinides burning or radionuclide transmuta-
tions have been proposed by International agencies [1]. At
the moment, the deactivation mainly consists in mechani-
cal processes, mainly the inertization where the waste is
incorporated into a large volume of material, or using liv-
ing organisms, e.g., Ralstonia detusculanense, an archae-
bacterium [2] able to signicantly reduce the radioactivity
of radionuclides coming from ssion reaction (e.g., Co-60,
Sr-90, Cs-135, Cs-137). Further, this crucial problem, i.e.,
reducing the radioactivity of nuclear (sanitary and indus-
trial) wastes, has also mainly been addressed through the
use of two main methodologies: mechanical and chemi-
cal-electrochemical methods. However, these methods do
not modify the radioactivity of the single radionuclide but
limit themselves to separate the radioactive fraction from
all the rest of the material and, possibly, to concentrate
it. In this way, the deactivation of a radioactive substance
consists in incorporating it in a large volume of inert mate-
rial: the result is a radioactivity decrease per unit of volume
but the total number of radioactive nuclei is unchanged
[3, 4].
Sugihara [5] proposed a treatment based on water
at high pressure for deactivating fission products in
Received: 21 August 2019 / Accepted: 28 September 2019 / Published online: 3 October 2019
* Pasquale Avino, avino@unimol.it | 1National Agency forNew Technologies, Energy andSustainable Economic Development
(ENEA), Via Anguillarese 301, 00123Rome, Italy. 2Istituto perlo Studio dei Materiali Nanostrutturati (ISMN- CNR), Via dei Taurini,
00185Rome, Italy. 3GNFM, Istituto Nazionale di Alta Matematica “F. Severi”, Università di Roma “La Sapienza”, p.le A. Moro 2, 00185Rome,
Italy. 4Department ofAgriculture, Environmental andFood Sciences, University ofMolise, Via De Sanctis, 86100Campobasso, Italy.
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.