Problems of nuclear waste disposal
To broaden the interdisciplinary perspective of the physics students in Mainz, the Young Minds group cooperates with the JungChemikerForum, the organization for students of the German Chemistry Society (Gesellschaft deutscher Chemiker).
Their first joined seminar, held on 24 April 2012, that they organized in light of the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe and the following change in German nuclear policy leading to one question which becomes more and more important: What shall we do with all the nuclear waste accumulated during the past four decades?
Considering the fact that nuclear waste has to be stored over thousands if not millions of years it becomes important to know how the radioactivity changes the properties of the materials involved in storage. This information can point to the best suited repositories and storage materials. As this question involves a great deal of chemistry Prof. Geckeis (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) introduced the basic reactions taking place in the presence of radioactive substances.
Radioactive waste is hard to detect should it escape from its destined resting place. Because humans have no senses to detect radioactivity we rely on measurement devices to detect even small quantities in our surroundings. How this can be done was the topic of the second talk of the evening. Prof. Wendt (JGU Mainz) gave a talk about the detection of small amounts of radioactive matter in the environment using several methods, ranging from simple decay counting to accelerator mass spectrometry.
The audience got an insight into a very complex topic which will be for a long time present in our society.
For more information, please visit the YoungMinds Mainz section website.
