Anodic Oxidation of the Carbon-14-labelled Organic Waste

Barium carbonate is a widely accepted stable chemical form for the safe disposal of carbon-14. This requires, however, oxidation of carbon-14-containing organic waste to carbon dioxide. We habe developed a method for the mineralization of organic compounds by anodic oxidation in silver-sulfate-containing sulfuric-chromic acid. This process can also be used for complete oxidation of "difficult" organic wastes, such as hydrophobic substances like hydrocarbons, plastics, activated carbon, etc. The generation of additional chromium-containing hazardous wastes are avoided in this process by electrolytically regenerating chromium(III) to chromium(VI). The degradation of C-14 labeled organic compounds during the process is monitored by on-line measurement the β-radiation of the produced ¹⁴CO₂