Following
the nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear
Power Plant in 2011, even the municipal solid waste (MSW) and sewage
sludge (SS) in northeastern Japan became contaminated by radioactive
nuclides such as
137
Cs and
134
Cs. To understand
the state of radioactive cesium (r-Cs) in the incineration residues
of the municipal wastes, research groups studied the concentration
and the chemical form of r-Cs in the residues, as well as its water-leaching
behavior. In the present study, we conducted thermodynamic equilibrium
calculations to estimate the possible chemical forms of r-Cs in the
incineration residues. Thermodynamic data for cesium oxides and aluminosilicates
were collected and compiled into a new database to perform equilibrium
calculations for systems that include Cs. The calculation results
suggested that Cs (radiocesium and stable cesium) in municipal solid
waste was transformed into gaseous CsCl or crystalline aluminosilicate
at incineration temperatures and, when a molten aluminosilicate phase
(i.e., slag phase) was generated, a proportion of the Cs species was
dissolved into the slag phase. In the case of sewage sludge, Cs was
calculated to be transformed mostly into crystalline aluminosilicate
at incineration temperatures, whereas by analogy with the behaviors
of Na and K, Ca,Cs-phosphate double salts were also potential incineration
products. These results could account for the high leaching rates
of r-Cs from the MSW incineration fly ash and the low leaching rates
from the MSW incineration bottom ash and SS incineration fly ash reported
in earlier studies. In the case of dewatered SS that included a large
amount of slaked lime as a flocculant, it was exceptionally difficult
for the calculation to represent the fate of Cs, and we needed to
include the contribution of silica sand in a fluidized-bed combustor
in the equilibrium calculation to represent the low leaching rates
of alkali species from the dewatered SS fly ash. From the results
of the thermodynamic equilibrium calculations and also from the calculated
standard Gibbs energy of cesium aluminosilicate formation/decomposition
reactions, the effects of waste composition and incineration temperature
on the fate of Cs were examined: High incineration temperature and
large amounts of Ca and Cl in the waste composition increased the
fraction of gaseous CsCl in the furnace and thus resulted in the high
distribution ratios of Cs in the fly ash of MSW and the high leaching
rates of Cs from the fly ash.