Remediation of plants contaminated with cesium by aqueous cleaning

Abstract Aqueous cleaning removed two-thirds of the radioactivity from cesium-contaminated plants. Instead of being transferred to the water, cesium was attached to particles of rice straw. These particles were analyzed by micro-PIXE to determine the surface distribution of several elements. The elemental ratio of cesium to silicon was constant, and both elements exhibited similar distributions, suggesting that cesium was bound nonrandomly to silicon on the surface of the rice straw. Thus, aqueous cleaning removed both cesium and silicon simultaneously.