Mold for high-level radioactive waste, maker: Mechanik Center Erlangen, approx. 2000, 133.5 × 43.0 cm, steel. Kerntechnische Entsorgung Karlsruhe, KIT North Campus, building 607.
This cigar-shaped steel container is a mold designed to hold radioactive waste, facilitating the handling and final disposal of nuclear materials. As most nuclear activities at Karlsruhe Research Center have terminated, the challenge of disposing radioactive material produced on-site has arisen. The reprocessing plant for spent nuclear fuel, operational from 1971 to 1990, left behind approximately 60 cubic meters of highly radioactive and concentrated liquid nuclear waste. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Institute of Nuclear Waste Disposal (INE), now part of KIT, developed a facility for encasing liquid nuclear waste in glass. The mold for containing this glass-waste mixture was also developed here. In 2009 and 2010, the vitrification plant filled these molds with radioactive waste at temperatures exceeding 800 °C. The mixture solidified into a glass mass, binding the radioactive components. Ongoing decay processes continue to heat the nuclear waste for years, generating surface temperatures on the molds of up to 180 °C. For transport and interim storage, these molds are packed inside shielding containers, such as the Castor type. Currently, INE is researching methods to isolate nuclear waste from the biosphere in geological formations. Even after Germany’s transition away from nuclear energy, the need for a suitable final storage site remains critical. It can take up to a million years for radioactive radiation to decay to natural ambient levels. kn