IAEA Updates Ι News
Streamlining storage IAEA conducts training in radioactive waste management in Africa Technology (AFRA), which is focused on providing support to African countries in strengthening their legal and regulatory infrastructures for nuclear safety and security. Use of the facility with active radioactive sources will need to be licensed by the national regulatory body in each country. In Uganda, this had been done prior to the training course. “This approach was implemented in line with the IAEA safety standards,” said Deogratias Sekyanzi, CEO of Uganda’s Atomic Energy Council, the country’s regulator.
Trainees watch as an IAEA expert removes a disused source — previously deployed in an industrial context — during the hands-on exercise. (Photo: O. Yusuf/IAEA)
The appropriate processing, conditioning and storage of disused sealed radioactive sources (DSRSs) is essential to ensuring the safety and security of people and the environment. These activities, however, can be challenging, particularly for countries that do not yet have domestic know-how in this area. Therefore, the IAEA has supported the development of an approach to DSRS management that is simpler and more cost-effective for countries with relatively few DSRSs. An IAEA training course held in Kampala, Uganda, in 2020 used this new approach for the first time. The approach involves a facility that provides all the necessary elements for the processing, conditioning and storage of low activity, neutronand gamma-emitting sources, of the type typically used in industry and medicine. Called the ‘2 ISO Container’ concept, the facility comprises two standard shipping containers — placed in close proximity to one another — equipped with the appropriate
32 | IAEA Bulletin, September 2020
ventilation, contamination control, safety and security infrastructure. One container serves as a processing and conditioning facility, while the other provides for the receipt and interim storage of low activity DSRSs and then of the conditioned sources. The facility and its procedures have benefitted from an international peer review. A panel of international radioactive waste management experts — from Germany, Ghana, Morocco and the United States — was convened to observe the functioning of the 2 ISO Container facility as well as the IAEA training course itself. The experts also reviewed the facility and the technical procedures of waste management — from initial receipt to eventual storage — in order to assess the approach against all relevant international standards and best practices. These efforts, financially supported by the European Union, are part of a broader IAEA initiative under the African Regional Cooperative Agreement for Research, Development and Training Related to Nuclear Science and
Some countries, such as Cameroon, have well advanced plans for using shipping containers for the storage of DSRSs, but in other countries, the safety of this method has not yet been demonstrated. Under a new technical cooperation project, launched in 2020, the IAEA is working to increase the capabilities of national organizations to demonstrate the safety of storage, explained David Bennett, a waste safety specialist at the IAEA.
The container and capsule approach Once the facility has been constructed, the next step is to retrieve the radioactive sources from their devices in line with the requirements and guidance outlined in the Code of Conduct on the Safety and Security of Radioactive Sources and the IAEA safety standards. At the heart of the proposed approach are technical procedures that local personnel must follow to recover the disused sources and condition them into a form suitable for storage. The procedures involve the use of a special capsule made from stainless steel into which the disused sources are sealed. The design of this capsule enables proper sealing without the use of specialized equipment, making it easy to handle in any country. Once sealed, the capsule containing the sources is placed inside a lead shield, which, in turn, is put in a concrete-lined barrel that serves
