Radioactive Waste: Treatment, Management, and Monitoring

Current nuclear and nuclear-related industries may generate a large amount of radioactive waste that should be securely contained until the waste is no longer radioactive. Despite this, radioactive wastes are sometimes released into living, working, and natural environments by nuclear accidents, leaks, and spills, as well as inappropriate disposal. The release of radioactive wastes results in the contamination of the environments, causing detrimental radiation exposure to humans and biota in the environments. More nuclear wastes may be produced from the energy sector in the coming decades, as nuclear energy plays a greater role in the electricity grid to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, suggesting that risks of such radiation exposure will perhaps increase. Thus, it is important to develop approaches to immediately detect and respond to such radioactive contamination, as well as to effectively manage and monitor radioactive wastes, to better protect humans and ecosystems from elevated risks of radiation exposure.

Conventional technologies have been used to treat liquid radioactive wastes, as well as for their management and monitoring. For example, ion-exchange, chemical precipitation, and reverse osmosis can be combined to treat radioactive wastewater and the treated wastewater can be directly discharged into natural water bodies. However, the combined process may be expensive and can produce a large amount of radioactive sludge that requires additional treatments and management. Such discharge of the treated water can be conducted at low cost, but it can cause public concerns about nuclear safety if appropriate assessment and monitoring are not carried out. Thus, there can be a demand for development and application of novel technologies for the treatment of liquid radioactive waste, alongside its management and monitoring. The goal of this Research Topic is to provide opportunities to discuss recent progress in radioactive waste treatment, management, and monitoring and disseminate the discussion in related scientific communities.

We welcome the submission of Original Research, Review, Mini Review, and Perspective articles on themes including, but not limited to:
• Single and integrated radioactive water treatment processes
• Novel materials for radioactive wastes treatment
• New approaches to manage and dispose radioactive wastes
• Innovative monitoring and detection techniques of radioactivity and radioactive wastes
• Radiation and health risk risk assessments of radioactive water discharge and disposal

Keywords: Radioactive Waste Treatment; Radioactive Waste Management; Radioactive Waste Disposal; Radioactivity Detection; Radioactive Waste Monitoring

Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.