Study on Electrochemical Decontamination of ⁶⁰Co Contamination on the Stainless Steel Surface

During the decommissioning of nuclear facilities and the ‘three wastes’ treatment, a large number of stainless steel metal parts will be produced, and the working environment and personnel will face the problems of potential radioactive contamination and exposure dose. Aiming at the problem of ⁶⁰Co contamination on the surface of stainless steel, a portable electrochemical test device was designed to remove the contamination on the surface of stainless steel effectively. The orthogonal experiment method was used to optimize electrochemical process parameters such as electrolyte concentration, current density and electrode spacing, and to verify the decontamination of ⁶⁰Co contamination on the surface of stainless steel. The results show that the electrochemical in-situ decontamination method established in this paper has the advantages of short decontamination time and high efficiency; Under the conditions of electrolysis time of 30 s, electrolyte of 10 mol / L nitric acid, current density of 0.3 A/cm² and electrode spacing of 0.4 cm, the decontamination efficiency of this method for ⁶⁰Co contamination on stainless steel surface can reach more than 99.9%, and the corrosion depth is more than 10 μm, which can reduce the contamination to the environmental background radiation level.