Drawingupon limitedexperimentaldata and a diversearrayof literature,a case can be made that organicchemicalsof the types utilizedin waste managementand chemicalprocessingare, in general, not stable in the alkali radioactiveenvironmentof the tanks with respect to degradation productsor other adducts. In mostcases these reactionsappear to take place slowly,but certain reactionsappear to be quite rapid. Radiolysisof water and nitrates generates reactiveradicalsthat attack organic and inorganic

more »

... ies makingorganic radicals,inorganicradicals,and highervalent metal ions (except for solvated electrons and H, which reducemanytransition metals to lowervalent states). (Danie!s 1969;Broszkiewicz, Kozlowska-Milneret al. 1981;Neta and Huie 1986;Buxton, Greenstock et al. 1988) Some conditions reduce the role of e-and H.. Oxygen( Milosavljevicand Micic 1978; Buxton, Greenstock et al. 1988;Ross, Mallardet al. 1992)and gaseous nitrogen oxides scavenge e-and H. at near diffusion limits (Knight and Sutton 1967),so if tanks are air saturated or have dissolvedNOxgases of nitrogen oxides (Warman 1967; Seddon and Young 1970; Janata and Schuler 1982),then these reactions should be significant. NOx. + e--. NOx" O2 + e--, O2".