News

Radioactive waste and Spent Nuclear Fuel

Publish date: June 20, 2003

All nuclear vessels have tanks for collecting liquid radioactive waste and storage facilities for temporarily storing containers holding solid radioactive waste. As soon as enough radioactive waste has accumulated, the containers are transferred to the service ships Imandra and Serebryanka, and transported to Atomflot for processing.

Solid waste is sorted by radiation level and divided into categories of “flammable” and “inflammable”. At Atomflot there is a flammable solid waste destruction facility with a capacity of 40 t/y. The facility allows for a reduction in volume of the solid waste by a factor of 80. The gases, which are produced in the process are specially filtered. Up to the present day, more than 350m3 of flammable solid waste has been processed using that installation.


Non-flammable solid waste, spent filter materials, and contaminated equipment are stored in special rooms and on

the temporary storage sites at Atomflot, as well as on the service ship Volodarsky. All production sectors of Atomflot entailing work with contaminated equipment are equipped with an air cleaning system from radioactive aerosols.


Liquid waste is transferred for processing at a pilot plant. Radioactive water is passed through a series of filters whereby the content of radionuclides is reduced to an acceptable concentration. The water is then bio-cleaned in the general cleaning system and released into the Kola Bay.