Most nuclear facilities treat all materials as radioactive waste, simply because they have been in an area where they might have become contaminated. Likewise, expensive components are sometimes discarded as contaminated because they have inaccessible surfaces which cannot be tested for contamination. These are very expensive practices which can be avoided through judicious use of a sensitive Q² (Qualitative and Quantitative) Low Level Waste Assay system to insure the most cost-effective handling of your waste. By optimizing waste disposal with a WM2110 Series Q² assay system, a typical nuclear power plant can expect a payback period of less than one year through reduced radioactive waste disposal costs.

Alternative systems based upon gross counting methods do not allow specific release limits for individual isotopes, plus they allow the natural radioactivity of radium, thorium, ⁴⁰K, or background fluctuations to contribute to measured levels. The result is overstated activity levels and unnecessary added disposal costs, which quickly offset any initial costs savings that may have been realized when the system was purchased.

The high resolution and wide dynamic range of its germanium detectors make the Model WM2110 system the choice for waste material containing totally unknown and/or complex mixtures, particularly when the samples contain both low energy and high energy nuclides.