HTGR Head-End Processing:  a Preliminary Evaluation of Processes for Decontaminating Burner Off-Gas.

Glass, R.W.; Lowrie, R.S.; Whatley, M.E.

doi:10.2172/4676074

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…The primary difference is the use of CO 2 as the solvent. The process is considered a potential candidate for use with gas streams rich in CO 2 , such as could occur in the reprocessing of graphite fuels [42][43][44]. While CO 2 is readily available, the process is limited to only those gas streams with high CO 2 concentrations.…”

Section: Carbon Dioxidementioning

confidence: 99%

Radioactive Iodine and Krypton Control for Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing Facilities

Soelberg

Garn

Greenhalgh

et al. 2013

Science and Technology of Nuclear Installations

169

119

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The removal of volatile radionuclides generated during used nuclear fuel reprocessing in the US is almost certain to be necessary for the licensing of a reprocessing facility in the US. Various control technologies have been developed, tested, or used over the past 50 years for control of volatile radionuclide emissions from used fuel reprocessing plants. The US DOE has sponsored, since 2009, an Off-gas Sigma Team to perform research and development focused on the most pressing volatile radionuclide control and immobilization problems. In this paper, we focus on the control requirements and methodologies for85Kr and129I. Numerous candidate technologies have been studied and developed at laboratory and pilot-plant scales in an effort to meet the need for high iodine control efficiency and to advance alternatives to cryogenic separations for krypton control. Several of these show promising results. Iodine decontamination factors as high as 105, iodine loading capacities, and other adsorption parameters including adsorption rates have been demonstrated under some conditions for both silver zeolite (AgZ) and Ag-functionalized aerogel. Sorbents, including an engineered form of AgZ and selected metal organic framework materials (MOFs), have been successfully demonstrated to capture Kr and Xe without the need for separations at cryogenic temperatures.

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Section: Carbon Dioxidementioning

confidence: 99%

Radioactive Iodine and Krypton Control for Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing Facilities

Soelberg

Garn

Greenhalgh

et al. 2013

Science and Technology of Nuclear Installations

169

119

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“…Selective absorption is one of the more versatile processing schemes that has been commercially adapted to the decontamination of different reactor off-gases [5,14,15,39]. Several process solvents, including carbon tetrachloride [23,40], kerosene-base liquids [31], liquid nitrogen [3,4], nitrous oxide [30], liquid carbon dioxide [6,12,13,17,43], dichlorodifluoromethane [24,30,41], and trichlorofluoromethane [25], have been proposed for this and other applications. Considering solvent capacities, separation factors, and thermal and radiation stabilities, as well as overall process safety and economic.features, Steinberg [30] suggested in 1959 utilizing an absorption process employing dichloro~ifluoromethane (refrigerant-12) for stripping the noble gases from contaminated air streams.…”

Section: Disclaimermentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Construction details are given in figure37. This unit was designed on the basis of a 10,000 Btu/hr-cooling duty and has a cooling surface of13.5 square feet. The shell is constructed from a 7-foot-long piece of 4-inch, Schedule 10, 304L stainless steel tubes.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Selective absorption pilot plant for decontamination of fuel reprocessing plant off-gas

Stephenson¹,

Eby²,

Huffstetler³

1977

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A fluorocarbon-based selective absorption process for removing krypton-85, carbon-14, and radon-222 from the off-gas of conventional light water and advanced reactor fuel reprocessing plants is being developed at the Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant in conjunction with fuel recycle work at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and at the Savannah River Laboratory. The process is characterized by an especially high tolerance for many other reprocessing plant off-gas components. This report presents detailed drawings and descriptions of the second generation development pilot plant as it has evolved after three years of operation. The test facility is designed on the basis of removing 99 percent of the feed gas krypton and 99.9 percent of the carbon and radon, and can handle a nominal 15 scfm (425 slm) of contaminated gas at pressures from 100 to 600 psig (7.0 to 42.2 kg/cm2) and temperatures from minus 45 to plus 25°F (-43 to-4°C). Part of the development program is devoted to identifying flow sheet options and simplifications that lead to an even more economical and reliable process. Two of these applicative flow sheets are discussed .

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“…The literature has provided some data on the solubility of 0_ in liquid CO-, ' ' somewhat less on N in CO* ' ' and a very small amount on CO in <X> 2 ' Most of the available data are at high concentrations, and hence higher pressures than of interest to this work. When the light gases comprise less than 50% of the gas phase, at total pressures less than 50 atins, the liquid phase contains less than 10% dissolved light gases.…”

Section: Solubility Of O M^ and Co In Comentioning

confidence: 99%

Decontamination of HTGR Reprocessing Off-Gases.

Whatley¹,

Glass²,

Meservey³

et al. 1972

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The off-gas from the reprocessing of HTGR fuel elements is unique among reprocessing nuclear fuel reprocessing off-gases because of the large amount of CO produced by the burning of the fuel element which contains about ten times 4* as much graphite as heavy metals. The relatively high temperature of the burning process (i>800°C) releases virtually all of the volatile fission proist£* ducts« and troublesome amounts of some which are normally solid. There filters to remove particulate solids and sorbtion methods for I and HO which have good potential for application to this off-gas, but no existing technology was found to remove and concentrate the Kr. The high concentration of CO in the filtered gas stream (^90% CO , 10% light gases, 10-20 ppm Kr), and the similarity of CO behavior to that of Kr preclude the use of commonly employed processes such as membrane permeation, sorption on charcoal or molecular sieves, and physical absorption by a third component. The removal of CO 2 before such an operation appears feasible, but undesirable. A process involving Kr absorption in liquid CO. (KALC), which exploits the fact that Kr is more soluble in liquid CO than.is O , N , or CO, appears to be a natural solution to this particular problem.The solubility of Kr in liquid CO_ has been experimentally determined by 85 an ill situ radioactive counting method using Kr. This method avoided the problems usually associated with sampling systems of highly volatile components.Kr (a total content of about 100 ppm) and CO ? were contained in a sealed stainless steel tube, brought to equilibrium by rocking in a constant temperature bath, and counted with the tube in a vertical position to measure the radioactivity in each phase. DISTRIBUTION Of THIS DOCUMENT IS UNLIMITEEngineering calculations, based on literature values for the solubility of 0_, N_, and CO and the measured values for Kr, on a KALC system which employs a fractionator and a stripper as well as an absorber indicate that a decontamination factor for Kr of 1000 can be achieved and that the Kr can be concentrated such that it comprises several percent of the removal stream.Die Rare Gas Removal Pilot Plant at the ORGDP was used to explore the feasibility of operating a KALC system. In addition to demonstrating that feasibility, the initial pilot campaign provided encouragement that the KALC process will be a good way to decontaminate the HTGR reprocessing off-gases. DECONTAMINATION OF HTGR REPROCESSING OFF-GASES*M. E. Whatley, R. W. Glass, P. A. Haas, A. B. Meservey, and K. J. NotzOak Ridge National Laboratory Oak Ridge, Tennessee Off-gas from the reprocessing of HTGR fuel elements is unique among the processing plant off-gases because the graphite and other carbon components of the HTGR fuel must be burned. This means that the quantity of gas is larger than that evolved from LWR, or LMFBR processing and the composition is different since it is mostly C0 ? . While alternative processing schemes were suggested which proposed the separation of the graphite by physic...

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HTGR Head-End Processing: a Preliminary Evaluation of Processes for Decontaminating Burner Off-Gas.

Cited by 5 publications

References 6 publications

Radioactive Iodine and Krypton Control for Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing Facilities

Radioactive Iodine and Krypton Control for Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing Facilities

Selective absorption pilot plant for decontamination of fuel reprocessing plant off-gas

Decontamination of HTGR Reprocessing Off-Gases.

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