Investigation of radioactive materials usages and wastes disposals in Singapore

• Main Author: May Nyo Zaw.
• Other Authors: School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Environmental engineering::Waste management
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/50998
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Any wastes that have radioactive properties are described as radioactive waste. They are usually the byproducts of industries that use radioactive materials in their various processes. The industries such as mining, nuclear power generations, defense, medicine and scientific researches generate byproducts of radioactive materials that include radioactive wastes. Radioactive waste can be in gas, liquid or solid form, and its level of radioactivity can vary. The waste can remain radioactive for a few hours or several months or even hundreds and thousands of years. In the recent years, nuclear power has become an attractive source of energy to sustain our technologically advanced life styles. When electricity became the integral part of living in today century, industries started creating nuclear reactors to provide electricity to many of the cities. Nuclear medicine, which has also gained popularity in the recent decades, contributed much to the radioactive waste by-products. Nuclear medicine is a branch of medical imaging that uses small amounts of radioactive material to diagnose and determine the severity of or treats a variety of diseases, including many types of cancers, heart disease, gastrointestinal, endocrine, neurological disorders and other abnormalities within the body. Because nuclear medicine procedures are able to pinpoint molecular activity within the body, they offer the potential to identify disease in its earliest stages as well as a patient’s immediate response to therapeutic interventions. In this Final Year Report, we will be investigating on the radioactive material usage in Singapore industrial and medical sectors and various radioactive waste disposal methods in Singapore.