Removal characterization of ¹³³Cs and ¹²⁷I in a water treatment process using a laboratory scale experiment

Due to the tragic disaster that happened in Japan and crippled the Fukushima nuclear power plant, serious concerns have been raised regarding the contamination of drinking water as a result of the radioactive materials that were released. Even though the quantities of radioactive material in rain were relatively low, people were concerned about the drinking water. Therefore, there is a need to know the removal efficiency of the unit process of water treatment and to prepare a safety plan to protect the public's health from radioactive materials. In this study, the laboratory scale removal rates were estimated for the coagulation/flocculation, adsorption, and ion exchange processes. The reference standard materials which are stable elements, Cesium-133 (Cs-133) and Iodine-127 (I-127), were used for the typical and advanced water treatment processes at the laboratory scale. For the coagulation/flocculation process, three major coagulants were assessed for this process. However, the removal rates of this process were low. For the adsorption process, powdered activated carbon and zeolites were investigated. The powdered activated carbon showed insignificant removal rates for both reference materials. However, synthetic zeolite was an effective process for Cs-133, and the ion exchange method showed high removal rates for both Cs-133 and I-127.