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Technology Evaluation Report: Non-destructive Decontamination Methodologies for Mixed Porous Surfaces
Citation:
U.S. EPA. Technology Evaluation Report: Non-destructive Decontamination Methodologies for Mixed Porous Surfaces . U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, EPA/600/R-16/150, 2017.
Impact/Purpose:
Technologies/methodologies to remove radiological contamination which can be used in response to a large-scale (wide urban area) intentional/unintentional contamination incident are needed. After an incident decontamination of buildings will be necessary to return a community to its citizens. In this research, four decontamination technologies were used on mixed building material coupons of brick/mortar, tile/grout, granite/mortar and solid mortar and grout coupons to evaluate the technologies and to test their ability to remove radioactive cesium (Cs)-137. The results indicated that the technologies had varying levels of success and that tile/grout will be the easiest media to decontaminate followed by granite/mortar, and brick/mortar. The all mortar and grout coupons were the most difficult to decontaminate. In addition to the decontamination data, information on deployment and operational factors was obtained. Understanding the effectiveness of the various decontamination technologies will enable the EPA to plan and execute an efficient clean up based on the building material expected to be encountered in an urban setting. The research information will be useful to incident decision makers when planning decontamination activities.
Description:
Technology Evaluation Report