Its going to take a long time more to clean up the mess at the Fukushima nuclear plant, and its already being expected to take decades (fifty years!). But if this new radiation decontamination tech from Toshiba and IHI works, it'll be done in a jiffy!

The SARRY-Aqua (Simplified Active water Retrieve and Recovery sYstem) is a machine that's the size of a shipping container, and is approximately 20 feet long. Contaminated water is pumped into it where it cycles past a specialized crystaline absorbent.

The absorbent will bind to the cesium molecules as well as iron ions in the water to magnetize the cesium and allow it to be easily removed using magnets which is later stored and taken elsewhere for disposal.

The trailer,  can reduce the concentration of cesium from 500 becquerels per kilogram to 10 Bq/kg—that's 20 times less than the Japanese Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry currently limits it to 200Bq/kg.

It can process a ton of water every hour and carries enough absorbent to clean 200 tons of water in a go.

Toshiba stated that the SARRY is currently able to process 1.7 tons of radioactive soil daily, though that figure could increase 100-fold in future iterations.

[JapanProbe - TechOn! - IHI - Next Big Future - Japan Today - Mainichi Japan]