Sandia technology used to remove radioactive material at Fukushima | National Nuclear Security Administration

Thanks to Sandia technology, radioactive material from more than 43 million gallons of contaminated wastewater have been removed at Japan’s damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power.

Sandia developed a technology that uses crystalline silico-titanate, or CST, as a molecular sieve that can separate highly volatile elements from radioactive wastewater.

The CSTs  were developed in the early 1990s response to a need for materials to remove radioactive contaminants from wastewater. During that time, researchers found that a certain class of synthetic zeolite is more effective in capturing some radioactive elements, like cesium, than other technologies.

To read more about the technology click here.

About the image:
Crystalline silico-titanate, or CST, is an inorganic molecular sieve that can capture and separate highly volatile elements from radioactive wastewater.