Layered carbon beds for the reduction of total oxidizable carbon (TOC) in radwaste treatment

Technical Report · Wed Nov 01 04:00:00 EST 1995

OSTI ID:229854

Hetherington, R

Activated carbon has been used for many years to remove organics from water supplies. Quite often, it was used ahead of a deionization unit treating make-up water for a high pressure boiler system. The organics the carbon was removing were mostly humic and fulvic acids. If they were not removed, the strongly basic anion resin in the system would become organically fouled and unable to produce the quality water required. In addition to removing organics, activated carbon was often used to remove free chlorine from the water prior to it contacting the ion exchange resins, avoiding decrosslinking of the cation exchange resin and oxidation of the functional groups on the anion resin. In 1985, at an EPRI Seminar on Liquid Radwaste Processing in Orlando, Florida, Bob Head of General Electric pointed out the need to control Total Organic Carbon (TOC) and halogenated hydrocarbons in BWR feedwater, if the specifications on the reactor water conductivity and pH are to be met. He also discussed the use of powdered carbon to meet this need. Last year at the EPRI meeting in Norfolk, Virginia, a very interesting paper by Merritt and Scala titled, {open_quotes}Charcoal Bed Operation For Optimal Organic Carbon Removal{close_quotes} was given. It described the treatment of floor drains at Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation`s Nine Mile Point Station, Unit No. 2, using granular carbon in a deep bed preceeding a mixed bed deionization unit. Quite sometime ago, when we were only concerned with protecting ion exchange resins treating make-up water from organic fouling, we tried laying down a layer of activated carbon on top of the mixed bed deionization units and found it to be quite effective in removing organics before they contacted the ion exchange resins, thus preventing organic fouling of the resin. We also found that if we wanted to remove the carbon, it could easily be backwashed off since it was of much lower density than the resin.

• Research Organization: Electric Power Research Inst., Palo Alto, CA (United States); Williams (Paul) and Associates, Medina, OH (United States)
• OSTI ID: 229854
• Report Number(s): EPRI-TR--105569; CONF-950718--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

05 NUCLEAR FUELS
ACTIVATED CARBON
LIQUID WASTES
LOW-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTES
NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT
RADIOACTIVE WASTE PROCESSING
REMOVAL