The most effective and widespread method to decontaminate radioactive cesium from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Disaster was peeling topsoil. But the method had problems, such as large amounts of discarded soil and large-scale work. In nature, cyanobacteria formed biomats on the ground surface and facilitated peeling topsoil when the biomats dried. The cyanobacteria-facilitating peeling decontamination method utilized these cyanobacterial properties. Cyanobacteria are located all over Japan and ‘local’ cyanobacteria could be used for decontamination without introducing new species. Utilizing cyanobacteria could decrease the amount of discarded soil to about 30 % and downsize the execution-scale to individual locations. Cyanobacterial biomats were easily cultivated, especially in rice fields, by maintaining wet conditions and exposure to 100 - 83 % solar radiation. Shading by a thin net was helpful in maintaining an environment suitable for cyanobacteria. Nowadays, to prevent uptake of radioactive cesium into rice, K
+ is usually added to fertilizer in rice fields. The K
+ fertilization in rice fields might also enhance cyanobacterial capture of radioactive cesium, because high concentrations of K
+ enhanced cyanobacterial uptake of Cs
+. Cyanobacteria could also mitigate the risk of radioactive cesium moving away from a decontaminating rice field. Therefore, the cyanobacteria-facilitating peeling decontamination method was proposed as an easy and safe‘D.I.Y.’ method for both farmers and the environment. Besides, plowing rice fields with water before peeling improved the efficiency of this method, because plowing increased the radioactive cesium concentration in the topsoil.
抄録全体を表示