September 20, 2000

Here is a VERY cool article about: Coating Isolates Nuclear Waste. This article talks about a new coating called EKOR that will possibly enable us to stop nuclear radiation from contaminating the environment. For those of you who may not have learned in high school, radiation emissions from radioactive materials only diminishes with time. There is no known way to neutralize their radioactivity. Storing and transporting highly radioactive items is dangerous because the radioactive material breaks up as it diminishes. Flakes and dust that break off from the items are hazardous just as the original material is. These flakes and dust particles enter the surrounding environment (such as the water table) and pose severe bio-hazards. Shielding of radioactive materials is very difficult because the materials used to shield it are affected by the radiation itself and either become radioactive or break down completely. This new coating has stood up to a several month test where it is showing no such effects from its application to the most poisonous place on the planet - the Chernobyl nuclear reactor #4!
This has VAST importance! If this stuff works, it could allow us to possibly encapsulate nuclear waste, and maybe even eventually make it fairly safe to be handled, transported and stored with little or no effect on the surrounding biology.

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