Study on acrylate peelable nuclear detergent for film formation at low temperature

The human handling of radioactive contamination on the surface of nuclear facilities has become an important issue in the development of nuclear industry. In order to solve the poor film-forming of nuclear detergent in low temperature, a new type low temperature film-forming peelable nuclear decontaminant was proposed. The acrylate copolymers were developed by solution polymerization of acrylic monomers in the mass ratio of BA (butyl acrylate): MMA (methyl methacrylate): AA (acrylic acid): EA (ethyl acetate) is equal to 50:45:5:100 considering different proportioning methods and reaction temperature. Then the orthogonal test was carried out to study the effects of crosslinker, plasticizer, thickener, release agent on the decontamination performance based on the orthogonal test method, and the optimal peelable formula of peelable nuclear detergent was obtained. Next the infrared properties, glass transition temperature, molecular weight of polymer and decontamination efficiency of peelable nuclear decontaminant were studied by experiments. The results show that the proposed low-temperature film-forming peelable radioactive decontamination agent can form film on concrete, sand, terrazzo, stainless steel and other surfaces, and is easy to peel off. The decontamination rate of this material is more than 82%. •We present a new type low temperature film-forming peelable nuclear decontaminant.•The decontamination effect on concrete, sand, stainless steel and terrazzo surface is obvious at −20 °C, which the decontamination efficiency is above 82%..