Abstract for submission to EPRI international low-level waste conference July 25-27, 1994, advanced effluent treatment processing by AEA

Technical Report · Mon May 01 04:00:00 EDT 1995

OSTI ID:133032

Kavanagh, P; Jones, C P; Neville, M D ^[1]

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1. and others

The potential for utilizing advanced effluent treatment technologies, such as ultrafiltration and electrochemical based systems on a large scale within the nuclear industry depends upon the reproducible demonstration of improved performance and economic application. Nuclear power plant operation gives rise to a variety of liquid radioactive streams, most of which require some form of treatment to meet discharge authorization limits to either the sea or inland waterways. Many of the radioactive nuclides in the wastes are present in colloidal form or absorbed onto insoluble material and as such could be removed by ultrafiltration alone. In other cases pH adjustment of the stream can lead to certain nuclides precipitating from solution making them compatible with ultrafiltration processing. Soluble species, however, cannot be filtered directly without first being removed from solution. Work conducted by AEA Technology, has shown that by adding small quantities of finely divided ion exchange materials into the waste onto which soluble contaminants can be absorbed prior to filtration, higher decontamination factors can be achieved than by more conventional treatment such as flocculation/sedimentation. These materials are known generically as `seeds` and the overall process `seeded filtration`. Seeds specific to different radionuclides such as Cs-137, Co-60, Sr-90, Sb-125, Te-99, Fe-59, Ni-63, Ag-110m, Zn-65, Cd-109, Hg-203 have been identified resulting in a flexible overall process where seed addition prior to ultrafiltration is tailored to the type of effluent to be treated.

• Research Organization: Electric Power Research Inst., Palo Alto, CA (United States); Williams (Paul) and Associates, Medina, OH (United States)
• OSTI ID: 133032
• Report Number(s): EPRI-TR--105134; CONF-940746--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

05 NUCLEAR FUELS
DECONTAMINATION
ELECTROCHEMISTRY
FEASIBILITY STUDIES
ION EXCHANGE MATERIALS
LOW-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTES
NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS
OPTIMIZATION
RADIOACTIVE WASTE PROCESSING
ULTRAFILTRATION