Australian scientists find new way to store nuclear waste

CANBERRA, Sept. 19 (Xinhua) -- Australian scientists have found a new and
cheaper way to filter and safely store nuclear waste.

Zhu Huaiyong, Associate Professor of School of Physical and Chemical
Sciences, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), told Xinhua on the
telephone on Friday that the research team led by him has discovered how to
create nanofibres, which are millionths of a millimetre in size and can
permanently lock away radioactive ions by displacing the existing sodium ions in
the fibre.

"We have created ceramic nanofibres which attract and trap radioactive
cations (positively charged ions), possibly forever," he said.

According to Zhu, the ceramic material can last a very long time, much
longer than the radioactivity of a radioactive ion. However, other material such
as plastic or steel, could not last longer than the radioactivity.

The discovery was particularly important as the world increased its
reliance on nuclear energy, Zhu said.

The professor, who finished his higher education in China, said water is
used to cool nuclear reactors and during the mining and purification of nuclear
material, so waste water is a big problem. If the waste was stored
conventionally in lakes or steel containers, there was a danger it could leak
and pollute the land around it.

The ceramic nanofibres were made from titanium dioxide, a mineral found
abundantly in Australia and used to color white paint. The ceramic nanofibres
they have found was also more chemically stable than metal, could last much
longer and was much cheaper to make than steel.

"The fibres are in very thin layers, less than one nanometre in width, and
the radioactive ions are attracted into the space between the layers," he said.