One of the main problems of using radioactive fuel is the disposal of its spent production waste. Moreover, the danger to the environment is not so much the material itself as the migration of radionuclides into the soil and air. But recently, a group of Russian scientists have discovered bacteria in the burial sites of radioactive waste that can help in the disposal of environmentally hazardous radioactive material.
The discovery was made during the study of underground waters at the Seversky deep disposal site, where liquid radioactive waste is buried at the Siberian Chemical Combine (SCHK), owned by the State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom. Using the methods of molecular genetics, scientists from the Frumkin Institute of Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry and the Federal Research Center for Biotechnology of the Russian Academy of Sciences discovered bacteria in groundwater samples near the storage facility that can convert ions of various radionuclides (including uranium with plutonium) into inactive forms.
The first data obtained indicate that it is quite simple to create conditions for bacteria to "work". In addition, microorganisms can be used both in waste storage facilities as a means to protect against the spread of radiation, and in production and even in places of man-made disasters. The researchers are now planning to study the behavior of bacteria in more detail and develop ways of introducing them into the disposal of radioactive materials. As the authors of the study said in an interview with the journal Radioactive Waste,