Backwashable filter offers rapid payback on radwaste treatment
This article discusses an alternative to precoat filters or disposable cartridges for processing equipment and floor drains which has proved effective for reducing liquid-radwaste volumes at nuclear stations. Makeup and condensate treatment at nuclear stations provide the exceptional feedwater purity demanded for steam generation with maximum reliability. Those steps, plus others taken by operating and maintenance personnel to prevent contaminants from entering the system, ensure that even radioactive wastewater streams are of unusually good quality, too good and too valuable to discard. As a result, liquid radwastes, appropriately treated, are generally stored for reuse rather than discarded. Treatment, consisting of filtration and demineralization to remove suspended and dissolved solids, is accomplished either by (1) cartridge filters followed by deep-bed ion-exchange (IX) bead resins, or (2) filter septa precoated with finely ground IX resin a combination filter demineralizer and, possibly, deep resin beds. Spend radioactive cartridges and precoat filter, however, only add to the volume of solid radwaste requiring disposal. Now, a third option using fine hollow fibers and backwashable filters to remove metal oxides and other suspended solids from nuclear-plant process streams, appears to be an equally effective and far less costly way to treat makeup, condensate, and wastewater. Candidate systems of those two types have undergone testing in condensate reruns for more than three years in and EPRI-sponsored pilot study at Public Service Electric and Gas Co`s Hope Creek station. Several have demonstrated that they can provide the required effluent quality, and full-scale tests are continuing at Hope Creek and elsewhere.
- OSTI ID:
- 51702
- Journal Information:
- Power (New York), Vol. 139, Issue 2; Other Information: PBD: Feb 1995
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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