Neil Hyatt

This article is part of the Nuclear Spin project of Spinwatch.

Neil Hyatt is chair in Radioactive Waste Management and Professor of Nuclear Materials Chemistry at The University of Sheffield.

Views

August 2013 leaks at Fukushima

To keep up with the rate at which radioactive cooling water is accumulated, TEPCO have opted to use containment tanks incorporating plastic seals. Seepage from these joints was the cause of the latest leak of radioactive water.

TEPCO need to develop a strategy to remove the residual contamination from this water so that it can be safely discharged under environmental regulations, and prevent it from accumulating in storage tanks. This could be achieved by further treatment using very selective ion exchange materials; these compounds take up the harmful radioactive elements from the water replacing them with non-radioactive species. This clever piece of chemistry is widely used in washing detergents, for example, where the chemical elements causing hard water are replaced with benign alternatives.

Affiliations

• UK Science Media Centre quoted Hyatt on 21 August 2013 in its 'expert reaction' to the radioactive water leak at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant run by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO).