The research group of Associate Professor Toshihiro Kogure of the Graduate School of Science, the University of Tokyo and Senior Researcher Noriko Yamaguchi of the National Institute for Materials Science, is a collaboration with the National Institute for Materials Science and the Meteorological Research Institute of the Meteorological Agency. Through research, we have succeeded in collecting and identifying radioactive fine particles derived from the reactor caused by the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident on the ground.It was revealed for the first time that the fine particles were mainly silicate glass, from which radioactive cesium was eluted.This is expected to contribute to solving the radioactive contamination problem.
The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake has caused radioactive contamination of the surrounding environment and is still a major social problem.It is said that the radioactivity was mainly radioactive cesium released from the reactor and was in a gasified state, but it has recently been confirmed that it is also contained in fine particles of several microns or less that came from inside the reactor. I did.However, such radioactive particles were collected from the atmosphere immediately after the accident and were not found on the ground.This time, the research group developed a fine particle collection method and succeeded in collecting fine particles from forests in Fukushima Prefecture, and used various electron microscopic analysis techniques to study the main components and internal structure of the fine particles through experiments.According to it, it was found that the main component of the fine particles is silicate glass, which is similar to window glass, and various substances such as iron and zinc are dissolved in it, and radioactive cesium is dissolved at a high concentration near the surface of the fine particles.
In the future, further research is planned to elucidate the origin of radioactive fine particles in the reactor and the dynamics of various radioactivity in the environment.From the results of this research, it is expected that the research on radioactive fine particles and the solution of the radioactive contamination problem will progress by clarifying the form of radioactive contamination for the environment centered on Fukushima.
