title: Behavior of Chernobyl fallout radionuclides in peat combustion.
abstract: The fallout from the explosion and fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant concentrated levels of up to 10 kBq 137Cs kg-1 dry weight in the fuel peat harvested during the summer of 1986 in Finland. We investigated the behavior of fallout radionuclides 137Cs, 134Cs, 106Ru, 144Ce, 125Sb, 95Zr, and 110mAg together with naturally occurring 210Pb and 226Ra in the combustion of this contaminated peat in four different power plants. The elements antimony, ruthenium, lead, and cesium were enriched on the smallest particles, indicating that they were in a volatile chemical form, while cerium, zirconium, and radium were nonvolatile at the combustion temperatures. This result confirms the previous finding that ruthenium is volatile in combustion. Although metallic ruthenium requires 2,310 degrees C to melt, some of its oxides melt and evaporate at much lower temperatures.
authors.affiliation: National Public Health Institute, Department of Environmental Hygiene and Toxicology, Kuopio, Finland.
authors.forename: M J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Jantunen
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Reponen
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Mustonen
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Itkonen
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kauranen
mesh_terms: D000059:Accidents; D055598:Chemical Phenomena; D002627:Chemistry, Physical; D004736:Energy-Generating Resources; D005387:Finland; D009688:Nuclear Reactors; D011210:Power Plants; D011847:Radioactive Fallout / Q000032:analysis*; D011868:Radioisotopes / Q000032:analysis* / Q000737:chemistry; D014455:Ukraine
chemical_list: D011847:Radioactive Fallout; D011868:Radioisotopes