“Non-energy nuclear applications such as radiation technology can play a significant role in cleaning up air pollution to meet regulatory requirements and to protect the environment,” said Joao Osso Junior, Head of the Radioisotope Products & Radiation Technology Section at the IAEA. “The IAEA helps countries convert fossil fuel emissions into high quality agricultural fertilizers with radiation technology.”

Electron beam accelerators – machines that produce beams of electron radiation – are a multi-pollutant treatment technology, which simultaneously remove air pollutants such as SO2 and NO_X in a single step with no waste generation. Conventional technologies using various chemical and physical processes have a similar efficiency in removing both NO_X and SO2 pollutants, but are more costly to install and operate, and generate waste that requires special methods to dispose of, Osso Junior explained.

An IAEA-supported project in Poland has helped the country build a full-scale electron beam accelerator facility to treat flue gases from coal-fuelled power plants, leading to a significant reduction in emissions of SO₂, NO_X and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

“Radiation technology is green, cost- and time-effective, and a very useful tool in combatting air pollution,” said Osso Junior.

Isotopic and nuclear techniques are also applied to monitor the pathways of greenhouse gases and particles through the atmosphere, predict their distribution and estimate their impact on ecosystems.