Development of low-temperature decontamination medium for decommissioning

Decommissioning is inevitable for each nuclear facility and, lately, it has become one of the most topical issues. Several decontamination methods have been successfully applied worldwide; however, variations in operating chemistry and/or different composition of the construction materials play a very important role and can cause unexpected problems. The experiments aim at dissolving the most resistant chemical present in corrosion layers, chromium (III) oxide, using redox chemistry and further test the found redox system on stainless steels and its model corrosion products. It was found out that persulfate solution in diluted sulfuric acid supported by Ag⁺ ions can efficiently dissolve Cr₂O₃ and selected substrates at temperature as low as 50 °C.