The Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute and UNIST have jointly developed a peelable decontamination coating for removing radioactive cesium. According to the research team, the coating demonstrated a removal efficiency of 94.9% in stainless steel surface tests and reduced the processing time from approximately 24 hours to 3 hours compared to existing commercial products.

The Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute announced on the 26th that this technology is a decontamination coating that applies catechol, derived from mussel adhesive protein, to the ends of polyurethane polymers. At nuclear facilities, radioactive materials remaining on the surfaces of buildings and equipment must be removed, but chemical cleaning or high-pressure washing raises concerns about the generation of contaminated water and secondary diffusion, so a peel-off type decontamination method has been considered as an alternative.

The research team developed a coating agent that adheres strongly to contaminated surfaces by utilizing the adhesive properties of catechol. This coating agent forms a film when applied to the contaminated surface and dried at room temperature, and then removes radioactive materials by peeling it off like tape. The key to the technology is that it effectively captures contaminant particles by simultaneously increasing adhesion to the surface and internal bonding strength of the coating.

In the performance evaluation, the removal efficiency of radioactive cesium from the stainless steel surface was found to be approximately 94.9%. For comparison, the commercial coating agent presented was at the 93.8% level. In particular, the researchers explained that while the commercial product required about 24 hours for the process, this coating takes only 3 hours, significantly reducing the time required for decontamination work.

Differences were also confirmed in cement surface experiments. When a coating agent was applied to cement with many small pores, dried for one hour, and then peeled off, the process was repeated twice, resulting in a removal efficiency of 13.1%. This is higher than the 8.4% achieved by commercial coating agents under the same conditions. The research team believes that the catechol-based adhesive properties influenced the improvement in decontamination performance even on porous surfaces.

The research team also confirmed that used coating waste can be dissolved again in an acetone solvent. They explained that by separating radioactive contaminants through this process and removing radionuclides with an adsorbent, the possibility of waste reduction and material recycling can be explored. The results of this study were published online in the materials science journal Materials Horizons in March 2026.

This technology is being discussed for potential applications in fields dealing with large areas of contaminated surfaces, such as nuclear power plant decommissioning or radiation accident response. However, as decontamination conditions may vary depending on the material and structure of the target surface, additional process optimization and verification are expected to be necessary for actual field implementation.