First successful isolation of radioactive particles from soil near the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant

Publication date: Available online 10 May 2016
Source:Anthropocene
Author(s): Yukihiko Satou, Keisuke Sueki, Kimikazu Sasa, Kouji Adachi, Yasuhito Igarashi
The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (F1NPP) accident in 2011 released radionuclides into the atmosphere in both aerosol and gaseous form. Subsequent studies of contamination in the environment have focused on the bulk radioactivity in samples. Comparatively little is known about the relative contribution and patterns of soluble versus particulate deposition of the radionuclides.We investigated a sample of heavily contaminated surface soil from a site 20km northwest of the F1NPP and isolated four radioactive particles from the surrounding soil. These particles had a maximum particle area equivalent diameter of 6.4μm and a maximum ¹³⁷Cs radioactivity of 67.5±0.1Bq per particle. They were larger than the particles identified in aerosol samples shortly after the accident at a location 170km southwest of the F1NPP. Two of the particles were spherical and two were fragmental. Silicates was one of the major components in the Fukushima radioactive particles, which is clearly different features from those of the so-called hot particles observed at the Chernobyl accident in 1986.These findings are significant because these particles are important to understand environmental dynamics studies and process of the accident.



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