710189C-Tech Innovation - Electrochemically Enhanced Decontamination ProcessClosedGRD Proof of ConceptInnovate UKLarge amounts of infrastructure from the UK civil nuclear programme are to be decommissioned over the next 50+ years. During the decommissioning process it is often desirable to remove surface contamination in order to reduce hazard and simplify further processing operations (e.g. providing man access for cutting and size reduction operations). Wet decontamination procedures and wash outs are commonly employed for this purpose, which generate large volumes of liquid effluent. Management and disposal of effluent is often a limiting factor in deployment of wet decontamination processes. This project looks to develop an existing technology, electrochemical oxidation, to manage the effluent at source to permit either re-use or disposal of decontamination solutions. Electrochemical oxidation will be used to effectively remove those components which often interfere with downstream treatment of spent decontamination effluents. This process opens up the potential to treat isolated plant and removes reliance on centralised infrastructure hence accelerating decommissioning timescales. The proposal also opens the opportunity to employ more effective decontamination reagents that may otherwise be discounted due to issues with downstream processing though the electrochemical removal of problematic components.