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Cleaning Up Japan's Radioactive Mess With Blue Goo

Posted by timothy on from the if-only-it-could-also-bounce dept.

InfiniteZero writes "A clever technology is helping hazmat crews in Japan contain and clean up the contamination caused by the ongoing nuclear disaster there: a blue liquid that hardens into a gel that peels off of surfaces, taking microscopic particles like radiation and other contaminants with it. Known as DeconGel, Japanese authorities are using it inside and outside the exclusion zone on everything from pavement to buildings."

3 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. Wait, what? by DWMorse · · Score: 5, Funny

    What? How will Repulsion Gel help us clean up Japan? It hardly worked at ALL for Aperture Labs.

    --
    There's a spot in User Info for World of Warcraft account names? Really?
    1. Re:Wait, what? by Burdell · · Score: 5, Funny

      I would sure hate to be the test case here. Poor guy got a bucket of blue paint; now he glows in the dark. Never has a problem finding his keys though.

  2. Useful, but they're going to need a lot of it. by Animats · · Score: 5, Informative

    DeconGel is a useful material, typically used for little lab-sized spill cleanup jobs. They're going to need tank truck loads of this stuff.

    This material concentrates contamination, rather than spreading it across wipes, water, and other cleaning agents. The blue gel can even be incinerated in special high-temperature hazardous-waste incinerators; the radioactives end up in the ash, not the gases. So you end up with a modest number of drums of low-level radioactive dirt.

    Perhaps with the need for large quantities of this stuff, the price will come down. If it were cheap, this would be a useful material for routine tough cleaning jobs. It can clean grouted tile, for example. People who have to clean foreclosed houses might find this useful.