Stability of Tritium and Iodine Sorbents in TPOG Conditions

Technical Report · Sat Apr 01 04:00:00 EDT 2017

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1366409· OSTI ID:1366409

Jordan, Jacob A. ^[1]; Jubin, Robert Thomas ^[1]

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1. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

US regulations could require the removal of both iodine and tritium from the off-gas stream of a used nuclear fuel (UNF) reprocessing facility. Advanced tritium pretreatment is a pretreatment step that uses high concentrations of NOR2R in a gas stream to volatilize tritium and iodine from UNF prior to traditional dissolution. The gaseous effluent from this process would then require abatement to remove tritium and iodine, but high levels of NOR2R could have a detrimental effect on the ability of various solid sorbents to remove the volatile radionuclides. For tritium and iodine, the sorbents of interest are 3Å molecular sieve (3AMS) for tritium and reduced silver mordenite (AgP₀ PZ), silver-functionalized silica-aerogel (AgAerogel), and silver-nitrate-impregnated alumina (AgA) for iodine. Prior research has demonstrated that exposure to high concentrations of NOR2R can reduce the iodine loading capacity of AgP₀ PZ by > 90% when exposed for 1 week. Research in Japan has demonstrated that AgA is more robust to NOR2R exposure than AgZ. The testing described here was intended to assess the effects of high concentrations of NOR2R on the iodine capture capacity of AgA and the water adsorption capacity of 3AMS. To determine the effect of extended exposure of the sorbents to NOR2R, both 3AMS and AgA were aged in a 75% NOR2R environment prior to loading. The 3AMS samples were aged for 1, 4, and 5.5 weeks at 40°C. They were then loaded with water in a 10°C dew point stream (corresponding to a water concentration of ~12,000 ppmv) at 40°C. There was no significant change in the water adsorption capacity of the 3AMS upon exposure to 75% NOR2R. The AgA samples were aged for 1, 2, and 4 weeks at 150°C and were loaded with 50 ppmv IR2R at 150°C. The results show that the iodine capture capacity of AgA is reduced by exposure to high concentrations of NOR2R. The iodine capacity reductions were 16%, 36%, and 76% for 1, 2, and 4 week exposures, respectively. This is less of a capacity loss than that seen in similar testing with the AgP⁰ PZ sorbent.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). High Temperature Materials Laboratory (HTML)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE)
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 1366409
• Report Number(s): ORNL/SR--2017/162; AF5805010; NEAF327
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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