The Treatment Procedure for a Volume Reduction of the Spent HEPA Filters in KAERI

Conference · Tue Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 2008

OSTI ID:21319790

Ji, Y Y; Hong, D S; Kang, I S; Shon, J S ^[1]

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1. Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, Yuseong, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)

Spent filter wastes of about 2,200 units have been stored in the radioactive waste storage facility of the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute since its operation. Among these spent filter wastes, a HEPA filter account for about 95 %. All these HEPA filter wastes generated at KAERI have been stored inside a poly bag in accordance with the original form without any treatment of them. Therefore, in order to secure a space in a radioactive waste storage facility approaching its saturation, it is necessary to treat them by a compaction in view of a radioactive waste treatment and storage, and finally to repack the compacted spent filters into a regular drum for sending them to a final disposal site. To do that, the spent HEPA filter wastes were classified according to their generation facility, their generation date and their surface dose rate by investigating the inventory of them. And also, a nuclide assessment of them was conducted by taking a representative sample at the spot of a high dose rate at the intake surface and the outlet surface of a spent HEPA filter without a dismantlement, before compacting them. At present, for the spent HEPA filter wastes after a radionuclide assessment, a compaction treatment of them is now being conducted by using the shaping and compacting equipment developed at KAERI. Thus, to put a HEPA filter with a hexahedral form of a 610(W) x 610(H) x 305(T) mm into a regular drum (DOT-17H) with an inner diameter of about 572 mm, a columnar shaping with a capacity of 15 tons was conducted. From this shaping, a shaped HEPA filter waste with a diameter of about 500 mm was directly put into a regular drum. And then, the compaction treatment of a shaped HEPA filter with a capacity of about 60 tons was conducted by vertically compacting it. As a result, a volume reduction rate of a spent HEPA filter waste by a shaping and compacting of it accounted for about 1/8 when compared to its original form. (authors)

• Research Organization: WM Symposia, 1628 E. Southern Avenue, Suite 9 - 332, Tempe, AZ 85282 (United States)
• OSTI ID: 21319790
• Report Number(s): INIS-US--10-WM-08421
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
COMPACTING
FILTERS
INVENTORIES
KAERI
MINIMIZATION
RADIOACTIVE WASTE STORAGE
RADIOACTIVE WASTES