A process for the decontamination of radionuclides from neutron irradiated carbon and / or graphite materials

The present invention relates to methods for decontamination of radionuclides from neutron irradiated carbon and / or graphite materials comprising mechanical and / or chemical treatment process and the mechanical treatment process comprising the steps vomiting, shaking, and include screening and chemical treatment process, a supply of activation energy and the addition of gaseous decontamination agents include, the addition and treatment with decontamination agents in a heatable pressure and / or unterdruckbestandigem reaction vessel or sequentially arranged reaction spaces is performed, characterized by the following process steps: a) addition of gaseous decontamination agents, which under a load pressure which is above atmospheric pressure, or pressure changes, such as changes between positive pressure relative to atmospheric pressure and negative pressure relative to atmospheric pressure, may be added so that the penetration of the decontamination agent in the internal pore system of the neutron-irradiated carbon and / or graphite material is accelerated with respect to the addition at constant atmospheric pressure b) purging the reaction vessel or the reaction space with an inert gas at, preferably, equal loading pressure as in step a) or at atmospheric pressure until the lowered pressure to leave the decontaminant largely in the pore system c) heating at T> 300 ° C under atmospheric pressure condition d) extraction of the gases formed from step c) by applying a vacuum to the reaction vessel or the reaction chamber and collecting the released radioactively contaminated gases e) iteratively repeating at least one of steps a) to d) until in the gas analysis of the extracted gases from step d) no or can be only up to a desired concentration radionuclides detected. The invention further relates to a method wherein a liquid decontaminant is used.