Off-gas recycle for long-term low temperature gas phase uranium decontamination

Conference · Fri Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 1994

OSTI ID:10166533

Bundy, R D; Bunch, D H; Munday, E B; Simmons, D W

In situ long-term low-temperature (LTLT) gas phase decontamination is being developed and demonstrated at the K-25 site as a technology that has the potential to substantially lower these costs while reducing criticality and safeguards concerns and worker exposure to hazardous and radioactive materials. The objective of gas phase decontamination is to employ a gaseous reagent to fluorinate nonvolatile uranium deposits to form volatile UF{sub 6}, which can be recovered by chemical trapping or freezing. The LTLT process permits the decontamination of the inside of gas-tight GDP process equipment at room temperature by substituting a long exposure to subatmospheric ClF{sub 3} for higher reaction rates at higher temperatures. Laboratory-scale experiments have demonstrated the feasibility of using LTLT gas phase decontamination with ClF{sub 3} to remove uranium deposits from this equipment. A mobile gas phase system is being designed to demonstrate the decontamination process on a full scale. If used to decontaminate the GDPs, the LTLT process would use large amounts of ClF{sub 3} and exhaust large volumes of by-product gases (ClF, C1O{sub 2}F, etc.). Initially, the excess ClF{sub 3} and reaction byproducts will be destroyed in a KOH scrubber. This paper describes a proposed system that could recover the excess ClF{sub 3}and regenerate the reaction by-products into ClF{sub 3} for use in decontamination of additional equipment. Use of this regeneration and recovery system would reduce raw material costs and also reduce the waste scrubber sludge disposal costs by reducing the amount of corrosive gases fed to the scrubber.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge K-25 Site, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-84OT21400
• OSTI ID: 10166533
• Report Number(s): BNL--49873; CONF-940853--1; ON: DE94015149
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

050500
052000
054000
11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
COST
DECOMMISSIONING
DECONTAMINATION
HEALTH AND SAFETY
OFF-GAS SYSTEMS
ORGDP
URANIUM
URANIUM ENRICHMENT
WASTE MANAGEMENT