Innovative characterisation techniques for large volumes (ICARUS)

This Work Package is driven by the following needs:

• To identify the best available characterization techniques for large volume raw waste in industrially relevant decommissioning situations, a comprehensive SotA is needed.
• To achieve fast and sufficiently accurate gamma activity distribution in complex large packages (1^st use case), non-destructive techniques (NDTs) require innovation and optimization to be proficiently implemented in industrial applications, encompassing decommissioning and ongoing operational processes.
• To improve and simplify the inventory of physical-chemical properties and alpha emitters compared to current expensive destructive techniques (DT) and high uncertainty scaling factors (SF) methods (2^nd use case), the optimization of NDT needs to be investigated in relevant industrial scenarios (decommissioning/operational processes).
• To improve sensitivity, accuracy, uncertainty and cope with expensive and time-consuming conventional radiochemical analysis (3^rd use case), cutting-edge DTs need to be developed for determining critical long-lived Difficult To Measure (DTM) radionuclides (C-14, Cl-36, Ca-41, Se-79, Zr-93, Mo-93, Tc-99, Pd-107, Cs-135, Cm-243, Cm-244) in decommissioning/operational samples to develop a comprehensive inventory.
• To lower the uncertainties and improve accuracy and reliability to meet ever stringent requirements set by national regulators for raw mixed waste (4^th use case), the SF approach needs to be thoroughly investigated.

The objective of this WP is further development, optimization and harmonization of innovative techniques for characterizing radiological, physical and chemical properties of LLW/ILW-mixed waste which could be critical for the safe implementation of radioactive waste management programmes, including destructive techniques (DT) on laboratory scale and its relation to non-destructive techniques (NDT) and scaling factors (SF) at the raw waste and package scale user cases.