I saw a video that said that Chernobyl will not be habitable for another 20,000 years. I was curious as to why it takes so long to clean up radioactive contamination? Also for Chernobyl specifically as technology progresses couldn’t we find new methods that significantly reduce the amount it takes for Chernobyl to be habitable again?
Sorry for bad Grammer.
In: Chemistry
Materials are made of chemicals. Chemicals are made of molecules. Molecules are made of atoms. Atoms are made of a nucleus with some electrons floating around it. A nucleus is stuffed full of protons and neutrons. Radioactivity happens when there are too many things stuffed into the nucleus, causing particles to be ejected from the nucleus.
To clean the radioactive material, you have to remove the nuclei. You can’t clean it up with chemical reactions because the atoms are still there. You could break the nuclei apart so they’re no longer too full, but that requires firing particles at them. Good luck hitting them all.
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