The Study for Recycling NORM - Contaminated Steel Scraps from Steel Industry

Conference · Mon Feb 24 04:00:00 EST 2003

OSTI ID:825862

Tsai, K F; Lee, Y S; Chao, H E

Since 1994, most of the major steel industries in Taiwan have installed portal monitor to detect the abnormal radiation in metal scrap feed. As a result, the discovery of NORM (Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material) has increased in recent years. In order to save the natural resources and promote radiation protection, an experimental melting process for the NORM contaminated steel scraps was carried out by the Institute of Nuclear Energy Research (INER) Taiwan, ROC. The experimental melting process has a pretreatment step that includes a series of cutting and removal of scales, sludge, as well as combustible and volatile materials on/in the steel scraps. After pretreatment the surface of the steel scraps are relatively clean. Then the scraps are melted by a pilot-type induction furnace. This experiment finally produced seven ingots with a total weight of 2,849 kg and 96.8% recovery. All of the surface dose rates are of the background values. The activity concentrations of these ingots are also below the regulatory criteria. Thus, these NORM-bearing steel scraps are ready for recycling. This study has been granted by the regulatory authority.

• Research Organization: Institute of Nuclear Energy Research, AEC, Lung-Tan (TW)
• Sponsoring Organization: none (US)
• OSTI ID: 825862
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
DOSE RATES
INDUCTION FURNACES
MELTING
METAL INDUSTRY
MONITORS
NUCLEAR ENERGY
RADIATION PROTECTION
RADIATIONS
RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS
RECYCLING
REMOVAL
SCRAP
STEELS
TAIWAN
WASTE MANAGEMENT