Assembly and Testing of a Tritium and Iodine Removal System for Use with Advanced Tritium Pretreatment
- Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
US regulations will require the removal of iodine and tritium, along with other volatile and semivolatile radionuclides, from the off-gas streams of nuclear fuel reprocessing plants. Tritium pretreatment is a head-end operation that could be incorporated within nuclear fuel reprocessing plants for the upfront removal and trapping of these volatiles species. Quantitative, up-front removal in a single compact system is of significant advantage because otherwise tritium and iodine distributes to other unit operations, each of which have associated off-gas streams also requiring treatment. Oak Ridge National Laboratory is presently developing an advanced tritium pretreatment process based on the oxidation of used nuclear fuel at low temperature using NO2/O2 mixtures, which produces a fine powder. This process can result in the quantitative volatilization of both tritium and iodine. The powder product can be selected to be U3O8, UO3, or a nitrate by adjusting the processing conditions and the process can be readily interfaced to either conventional aqueous-based or advanced pyrochemical–based reprocessing plants. In preparation for a planned kilogram-scale hot cell demonstration of the advanced tritium pretreatment process with used nuclear fuel (UNF), an integrated iodine and tritium capture system was designed and assembled. Three experimental runs of this system were completed successfully. All the samples were submitted for analysis. The results and data analysis will be covered in a subsequent report to be issued by the Off-Gas Sigma Team. Several additional tests should be undertaken to provide additional information on the system’s performance. The objectives for the additional tests and test conditions are presented in this report.
- Research Organization:
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE), Fuel Cycle Technologies (NE-5)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-00OR22725
- OSTI ID:
- 1427662
- Report Number(s):
- ORNL/TM-2017/464
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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