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Although chloride compounds are the main cause of corrosion damage in distillation unit, standard methods to determine them do not guarantee good results. In this study, the chloride concentration of different crude oils was measured using different techniques and the results were compared. ASTM D3230, D4929 as standard methods, XRF as alternative technique and Neutron Activation Analysis as reference method, were applied. It is concluded that XRF method is an effective technique for measuring the chloride concentration of oils.

The radioactive waste produced from the construction of a nuclear power plant is a controversial topic. The resulting radioactive waste contains 60Co and 137Cs isotopes that are the most difficult to remove. Bentonite is widely used as an adsorbent for heavy metals. An important factor is the safe operation of waste management at a nuclear power plant to be built in Vietnam. Therefore, a method of degrading complexes of radionuclides and the adsorption of radionuclides onto Vietnamese Bentonite was implemented in this study. In current literature, UV radiation and heating with oxidising substances are used in general for degrading complexes of radionuclides. The experimental results for the adsorption of Co(II) and Cs+ onto VNB suggest that VNB can be used in the future for large-scale liquid waste treatment due to its low cost, high efficiency, and environmentally friendliness.

Food-chain models are used to predict radionuclide ingestion after fallout deposition. These models include those transfer processes (soil-to-plant transfer factor(s) [TF], plant-to-animal transfer coefficient(s) [TC] and concentration ratio [CR]) that are likely to be important for radiological assessment. The range of variability for transfer factors for the same plant groups is great, about 4–5 orders of magnitude, which limits their applicability. A better way to determine the best estimate the factors for radiocaesium and other important radionuclides is if the site-specific data are available. Soil, plant and animal samples were collected from a pasture area in Hungary during the vegetation period in 2016. Stable 133Cs concentration was analysed by comparative method with neutron activation analysis (NAA). The comparator and the samples were irradiated in thermal neutron flux 2.55 × 1012 ncm−2s−1 for 2 h (soil) and 6 h (vegetation, animal samples) in the TRIGA Mark II research reactor at the Nuclear Engineering Teaching Laboratory. After an appropriate decay time (12 days) the samples were measured by gamma-spectrometry and analysed. The observed stable caesium TCpm (0.48–0.53) and CRpm (0.41–0.45) were very close to 137Cs factors in the IAEA 2009 Report of 0.49 and 0.54, respectively. This methodology is particularly suitable for the simultaneous study of natural caesium in ecosystem compartments. Consequently, the transfer of stable caesium in a pasture field may be regarded as a useful analogy in predicting the long-term changes of 137Cs affected by site-specific environmental factors.