Biochemical Process of Low Level Radioactive Liquid Simulation Waste Containing Detergent

Abstract. Research of biochemical process of low level radioactive liquid waste containing detergent has been done. Thse organic
liquid wastes are generated in nuclear facilities such as from laundry. The wastes that are cotegorized as hazard and poison
materials are also radioactive. It must be treated properly by detoxification of the hazard and decontamination of the radionuclides
to ensure that the disposal of the waste meets the requirement of standard quality of water. This research was intended to
determine decontamination factor and separation efficiensies, its kinetics law, and to produce a supernatant that ensured the
environmental quality standard. The radioactive element in the waste was thorium with activity of 5.10-5 Ci/m3
. The radioactive
liquid waste which were generated in simulation plant contains detergents that was further processed by aerobic biochemical
process using SGB 103 bacteria in a batch reactor equipped with aerators. Two different concentration of samples were processed
and analyzed for 212 hours and 183 hours respectively at a room temperature. The product of this process is a liquid phase called
as supernatant and solid phase material called sludge. The chemical oxygen demand (COD), biological oxygen demand (BOD),
suspended solid (SS), and its alpha activity were analyzed. The results show that the decontamination factor and the separation
efficiency of the lower concentration samples are higher compared to the samples with high concentration. Regarding the
decontamination factor, the result for 212 hours processing of waste with detergent concentration of 1.496 g/L was 3.496 times,
whereas at the detergent concentration of 0.748 g/L was 15.305 times for 183 hours processing. In case of the separation
efficiency, the results for both samples were 71.396% and 93.465% respectively. The Bacterial growth kinetics equation follow
Monod’s model and the decreasing of COD and BOD were first order with the rate constant of 0.01 hour-1
.