Decontamination of equipment and facilities serves various important purposes:

(1) Operational decontamination aims to enable the re-use of equipment, thereby increasing efficiency and minimizing resource consumption. This process also functions as a pre-treatment step to facilitate the safe and effective disposal of equipment and facilities that have reached the end of life.

(2) Decontamination plays a crucial role during the closure or decommissioning phase of a project. Then decontamination focuses on preparing used equipment and facilities for subsequent disposal at the conclusion of the project’s operational period.

The primary benefit of reducing or eliminating contamination lies in the possibility of reusing equipment, in addition to achieving a significant reduction in waste volume. After decontamination, typically only a small residual amount remains, which contains the separated radionuclides, and only this fraction requires to be managed as Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material (NORM).

A variety of decontamination technologies is available, tailored to different applications. For materials contaminated with NORM, several suitable techniques include:

- Manual preparation methods

- High-pressure water-jetting

- Electrochemical baths

- Abrasive blasting, e.g. with sand

Methods such as manual preparation and water-jetting are considered relatively gentle approaches, often leading to equipment that can be reused after decontamination. In contrast, chemical decontamination methods may involve substances like phosphoric acid, requiring further verification to determine if re-use is feasible. Abrasive blasting, while effective in certain contexts, typically precludes re-use due to the material loss incurred.

Overall, decontamination technologies can be carried out either manually or through automated systems designed for enhanced efficiency and capacity. Although techniques that purify contaminated solutions contribute to the overall goal of decontamination, they are generally categorized as waste treatment technologies rather than direct decontamination processes.

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