Cleaning Up Japan's Radioactive Mess With Blue Goo 102
InfiniteZero writes "A clever technology is helping hazmat crews in Japan contain and clean up the contamination caused by the ongoing nuclear disaster there: a blue liquid that hardens into a gel that peels off of surfaces, taking microscopic particles like radiation and other contaminants with it. Known as DeconGel, Japanese authorities are using it inside and outside the exclusion zone on everything from pavement to buildings."
Re:Wow! (Score:4, Informative)
Alpha and beta radiation is radiation for as long as it is actually radiating. As soon as it impacts a surface and sticks, it becomes helium and electrons.
Radiation is short lived, and not a contaminate you can simply remove. Isotopes undergoing decay to produce said radiation can be removed.
Useful, but they're going to need a lot of it. (Score:5, Informative)
DeconGel [decongel.com] is a useful material, typically used for little lab-sized spill cleanup jobs. They're going to need tank truck loads of this stuff.
This material concentrates contamination, rather than spreading it across wipes, water, and other cleaning agents. The blue gel can even be incinerated in special high-temperature hazardous-waste incinerators; the radioactives end up in the ash, not the gases. So you end up with a modest number of drums of low-level radioactive dirt.
Perhaps with the need for large quantities of this stuff, the price will come down. If it were cheap, this would be a useful material for routine tough cleaning jobs. It can clean grouted tile, for example. People who have to clean foreclosed houses might find this useful.
Repultion Gel? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Price? (Score:4, Informative)
From http://money.cnn.com/2011/05/25/technology/toxic_waste_cleanup_goo/index.htm [cnn.com]
"One gallon of DeconGel nuclear decontaminant sells for $160 and covers between 50 to 100 square feet. "