Carbon dioxide-krypton separation and radon removal from nuclear-fuel-reprocessing off-gas streams
General Atomic Company (GA) is conducting pilot-plant-scale tests that simulate the treatment of radioactive and other noxious volatile and gaseous constituents of off-gas streams from nuclear reprocessing plants. This paper reports the results of engineering-scale tests performed on the CO/sub 2//krypton separation and radon holdup/decay subsystems of the GA integrated off-gas treatment system. Separation of CO/sub 2/ from krypton-containing gas streams is necessary to facilitate subsequent waste processing and krypton storage. Molecular sieve 5A achieved this separation in dissolver off-gas streams containing relatively low krypton and CO/sub 2/ concentrations and in krypton-rich product streams from processes such as the krypton absorption in liquid carbon dioxide (KALC) process. The CO/sub 2//krypton separation unit is a 30.5-cm-diameter x 1.8-m-long column containing molecular sieve 5A. The loading capacity for CO/sub 2/ was determined for gas mixtures containing 250 ppM to 2.2% CO/sub 2/ and 170 to 750 ppM krypton in either N/sub 2/ or air. Gas streams rich in CO/sub 2/ were diluted with N/sub 2/ to reduce the temperature rise from the heat of adsorption, which would otherwise affect loading capacity. The effluent CO/sub 2/ concentration prior to breakthrough was less than 10 ppM, and the adsorption capacity for krypton was negligible. Krypton was monitored on-line with a time-of-flight mass spectrometer and its concentration determined quantitatively by a method of continuous analysis, i.e., selected-ion monitoring. Radon-220 was treated by holdup and decay on a column of synthetic H-mordenite. The Rn-220 concentration was monitored on-line with flow-through diffused-junction alpha detectors. Single-channel analyzers were utilized to isolate the 6.287-MeV alpha energy band characteristic of Rn-220 decay from energy bands due to daughter products.
- Research Organization:
- General Atomic Co., San Diego, CA (USA)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AT03-76SF71053
- OSTI ID:
- 5363147
- Report Number(s):
- GA-A-16809; CONF-820833-5; ON: DE82018288
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 17. DOE nuclear air cleaning conference, Denver, CO, USA, 1 Aug 1982
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
CARBON DIOXIDE
ADSORPTION
SEPARATION PROCESSES
FUEL REPROCESSING PLANTS
OFF-GAS SYSTEMS
KRYPTON
MOLECULAR SIEVES
SORPTIVE PROPERTIES
MORDENITE
RADIOACTIVE WASTE PROCESSING
RADON 222
DAUGHTER PRODUCTS
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
FLOWSHEETS
MASS SPECTROSCOPY
NITROGEN
SIMULATION
ADSORBENTS
ALPHA DECAY RADIOISOTOPES
CARBON COMPOUNDS
CARBON OXIDES
CHALCOGENIDES
DATA
DAYS LIVING RADIOISOTOPES
DIAGRAMS
ELEMENTS
EVEN-EVEN NUCLEI
FLUIDS
GASES
HEAVY NUCLEI
INFORMATION
INORGANIC ION EXCHANGERS
ION EXCHANGE MATERIALS
ISOTOPES
MANAGEMENT
MATERIALS
MINERALS
NONMETALS
NUCLEAR FACILITIES
NUCLEI
NUMERICAL DATA
OXIDES
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
PROCESSING
RADIOISOTOPES
RADON ISOTOPES
RARE GASES
SILICATE MINERALS
SORPTION
SPECTROSCOPY
SURFACE PROPERTIES
WASTE MANAGEMENT
WASTE PROCESSING
ZEOLITES
052001* - Nuclear Fuels- Waste Processing
050800 - Nuclear Fuels- Spent Fuels Reprocessing