Difficulties in Treatment of Contaminated Water in Fukushima-1 Nuclear Power Plant and Disposal of its Secondary Waste

The completion of a cold shutdown state (step 2), in response to the efforts to resolve the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Accident, was declared in December 2011. The temporarily installed water treatment system is being operated for circulating water cooling, which supports the cold shutdown state of the nuclear reactors. However, the installation of the permanent water treatment system, and efforts to deal with the storage, processing, and disposal of secondary wastes generated by the contaminated water treatment are also required. In this commentary, we outline the current status of contaminated water treatment, and explain the adsorbent performance as well as technical issues regarding future processing and disposal.