• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.30-34
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• 1983

The present study was carried out to determine the effect of a radionuclide, cesium-137, in soybean, which is an element released usually from nuclear facilities. Soybean plants were grown on the pots treated with cesium-137 $0.5{\sim}60{\mu}Ci/1kg$ soil and the uptake, translocation and accumulation of the radiocesium in the plant parts were measured at different growth stage. The results are summarized as follows: 1) Visual toxic symptoms on the plants due to treatment of radioactive cesium were not observed up to $60{\mu}Ci/10Kg$ soil in a pot. 2) The uptake of cesium-137 in soybean plant was increased with increment of concentration applied, while the uptake of potassium was proportionally decreased, indicating to have an ion antagonistic relationship between them. 3) The absolute amounts of cesium-137 in the plants were gradually increased by the pod setting stage, but rather reduced at harvesting stage. The accumulation occurred more in the leaves and stems than the soybean seeds. 4) The rate of uptake was ranged from 0.069 to 0.005 with proportional decrease by increasing concentration applied and the rate of Cs-137 translocation from plants to seeds was averaged 38.6% in soybean plant. The concentration coefficient was 0.04 in the soybean seeds from the pots treated with $20{\mu}Ci$ of cesium-137 and decreased with increment of cesium-137 applied.

• 한국해양학회지
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.51-56
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• 1975

Continued to the previous papers, the present investigation is carried out to clarify cesium-137 activities and potassium contents among 54 samples of edible marine algae collected along the coast of Korea during September, 1973 and April, 1974. The potassium contents are variable, 1.5-29.6%, and 11.36% on an average, while most of the members contain them about 10-16% generally. Among the algal phyla, they are 13.49% in green, 10.82% in brown and 16.46% in red algae, respectively. Cesium-137 activities are variable, 0.19-8.13 pCi$\^$137/ Cs/g K, and 2.35 pCi$\^$137/Cs/g K on an average in the samples investigated. Among the algal phyla they are 4.35 in green, 2.17 in brown and 0.89 pCi $\^$137/Cs/g K in red algae, respectively. Green algae contain especially higher activities compared with the other two groups. The brown alga, Myelophycus caespitosus shows the highest activities, 8.13 pCi$\^$137/Cs/g K, among the members investigated. Considering the concentration factor, this plant would be an indicator plant of cesium-137 among the marine algae along the coast of Korea.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.1-5
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• 1978

Investigation is carried out that low-level liquid radioactive wastes which is consisted of long half-life nuclides such as cesium can be treated by Korean clinoptillolite as a kind of zeolites. Column operation using a activated clinoptillolite shows good results in terms of break-through curves and comparing to clinoptillolite classified at WARD in U.S, Korean clinoptillolite shows a tailing phenomena longer than that of WARD. The fixation quantity of radioactivity in Korea clinoptillolite is to be about $75{\mu}Ci/100g$ using a $2.5{\times}10^{-3}{\mu}Ci/ml$ solution.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.2
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• pp.516-522
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• 2023

The co-precipitation process plays a key role in the decontamination of radionuclides from low and intermediate levels of liquid waste. For that reason, the removal of Cs ions from waste solution by the co-precipitation method was carried out. A simulated liquid waste (¹³³Cs) was prepared from a 0.1 M CsCl solution, while wastewater generated by washing steel ash served as a representative of radioactive cesium solution (¹³⁷Cs). By co-precipitation, potassium ferrocyanide was applied for the adsorption of Cs ions, while nickel nitrate and iron sulfate were selected for supporting the precipitation. The amount of residual Cs ions in the CsCl solution after precipitation and filtration was determined by ICP-OES, while the radioactivity of ¹³⁷Cs was measured using a gamma-ray spectrometer. After cesium removal, the amount of cesium appearing in both XRD and SEM-EDS was analyzed. The removal efficiency of ¹³³Cs was 60.21% and 51.86% for nickel nitrate and iron sulfate, respectively. For the ash-washing solution, the removal efficiency of ¹³⁷Cs was revealed to be more than 99.91% by both chemical agents. This implied that the co-precipitation process is an excellent strategy for the effective removal of radioactive cesium in waste solution treatment.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.549-554
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• 2014

This study was evaluated the applicability of the membrane filtration process (Micro Filtration (MF), nanofiltration membranes (NF), reverse osmosis (RO)) on the major radioactive substances, iodine ($I^-$) and cesium ($Cs^+$) using membranes produced in Korea and domestic raw water. Iodine ($I^-$) or cesium ($Cs^+$) in the microfiltration membrane (MF) process could not be expected removal efficiency by eliminating marginally at the combined state with colloidal and turbidity material. At the domestic raw water (lake water, turbidity 1.2 NTU, DOC 1.3 mg/L) conditions, nanofiltration membrane (NF) and reverse osmosis (RO) showed a high removal rate of about 88 ~ 99% for iodine ($I^-$) and cesium ($Cs^+$) and likely to be an alternative process for the removal of radioactive material.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.39-49
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• 2021

The behaviors of various desorption agents were investigated during the desorption of cesium (Cs) from samples of clay minerals and actual soil. Results showed that polymeric cation exchange agents (polyethyleneimine (PEI)) efficiently desorbed Cs from expandable montmorillonite, whereas acidic desorption solutions containing HCl or PEI removed considerable Cs from hydrobiotite. However, most desorption agents could desorb only 54% of Cs from illite because of Cs's specific adsorption to selective adsorption sites. Cs desorption from an actual soil sample containing Cs-selective clay mineral illite (< 200 ㎛) and extracted from near South Korea's Kori Nuclear Power Plant was also investigated. Considerable adsorbed 137Cs was expected to be located at Cs-selective sites when the 137Cs loading was much lower than the sample's cation exchange capacity. At this low 137Cs loading, the total Cs amount desorbed by repeated washing varied by desorption agent in the order HCl > PEI > NH4+, and the highest Cs desorption amount achieved using HCl was 83%. Unlike other desorption agents with only cation exchange capabilities, HCl can attack minerals and induce dissolution of metallic elements. HCl's ability to both alter minerals and induce H+/Cs+ ion exchange is expected to promote Cs desorption from actual soil samples.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.29-32
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• 1961

Two methods for the determination of Cesium-137 in various foods(ashes) were compared. The one comprises two steps, the first being the separation of alkalies as cobaltinitrites or perchlorates by the radiochemical method, and the second being the measurement of photopeak area due to the presence of Cs-137 by the use of scintillation spectrometer. The other method is the direct subjection of ash samples to the spectrometry without the radiochemical separation. The combined contribution of K-40 and Rb-87 to the spectrum was not found on account of the difference in energies of these nuclides. These two methods gave, a good agreement in the determination of Cs-137 in 50-100g ash samples of vegetables or cereals under investigation.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.154-162
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• 2020

Background: Several studies have reported that wild mushrooms contain high amounts of radioactive cesium (137Cs). After the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Accident, a significantly high concentration of 137Cs has been detected in wild mushrooms, and their consumption may be the cause of the chronic internal exposure of local consumers to radioactivity. Therefore, an accurate evaluation of the internal radioactivity resulting from mushroom ingestion is needed. Materials and Methods: The 137Cs elution rate through the cooking and digestion stages was evaluated using in vitro experiments. The edible mushroom Pleurotus djamor was taken as a sample for the experiments. The mushrooms were cultivated onto solid media containing 137Cs. We evaluated the internal dose based on the actual conditions using the elution rate data. For various cooking methods, the results were compared with those of other wild edible mushrooms. Results and Discussion: From the elution experiment through cooking, we proved that 25%-55% of the 137Cs in the mushrooms was released during soaking, boiling, or frying. The results of a simulated digestion experiment after cooking revealed that almost all the 137Cs in the ingested mushrooms eluted in the digestive juice, regardless of the cooking method. The committed effective dose was reduced by 20%-75% when considering the dissolution through the cooking process. Conclusion: We found that cooking lowers 137Cs concentration in mushrooms, therefore reducing the amount of radioactivity intake. Besides, since there were differences between mushroom types, we demonstrated that the internal exposure dose should be evaluated in detail considering the release of 137Cs during the cooking stages.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.127-137
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• 2018

Radioactive contamination has become an important environmental concern after the accident occurred in Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plants. $^{134}Cs$ and $^{137}Cs$ are the major fission products and they are main problems in radioactive contamination. Huge amounts of Cs were released during the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plants accident and as a result of this incident, many researchers focused on the development of adsorbents for decontamination of radiotoxic cesium. This review will critically evaluate recent advances in the preparation of Prussian blue and its analogue compounds, which are promising materials for cesium removal. Furthermore, this review will discuss recent studies on the cesium adsorption using different types of clay and clay based adsorbents and summarize various types of newly developed Cs adsorbents reported in recent years.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.304-315
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• 2004

The ageing effects of radionuclides in radioactive soil on remediation using the electrokinetic method were analyzed. Comparative experiments were conducted for the reactive soil around a TRIGA research? reactor contaminated with $^{137}Cs\;and\;^{60}Co$ for 15 years and the non-reactive soil that was intentionally contaminated with $Cs^+\;and\;Co^{2+}$ for 3 days. It was observed that because of an aging effect on $^{137}Cs$, the efficiency of removing it decreased. $H_{2}SO_4$ used as an additive to increase the removal efficiency showed a higher removal capability than other chemicals for both $^{137}Cs\;and\;^{60}Co$. The efficiency of removing radionuclides from the radioactive soil in the column was proportional to the capability of the added chemical to extract radionuclides. It took 10 days to achieve a $54\%$ removal of $^{137}Cs$ and a $97\%$ removal of $^{60}Co$ from the soil. The volume of the soil wastewater discharged from the soil column by the electrokinetic method was $20\%$ below that for soil washing.