Analysis of samples from the Purex vessel vent silver reactor

Technical Report · Wed Jun 11 04:00:00 EDT 1969

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/5673291· OSTI ID:5673291

du Plessis, L. A.; Sutter, S. L.

The process vessel off-gases originating in nuclear fuel reprocessing plants are routinely treated to remove excessive radionuclide contents. In the Purex Plant, at Hanford, one of the treatment steps reduces the concentration of {sup 131}I by passing the gas through a heated bed of AgNO{sub 3} coated Berl saddles. The silver reactors for the dissolving vessel off-gas system have proved to be effective traps for iodine under ordinary operating conditions. However, there has been concern about the efficiency of the vessel vent silver reactor, which operates at the comparatively low temperature of 160{degree}C (vs. 190{degree} in the dissolver cells), takes a larger off-gas load than the dissolver reactors, and has a lower concentration of iodine. It has also been suspected that organic iodides, which could be at higher concentration in the vent system, might not be as efficiently trapped in the reactor as inorganic compounds of iodine. Organic iodides have been qualitatively identified in the stack gases of the Hanford and Savannah River Purex plants. These investigations did not include quantitative estimation of the organic iodides. In the present study, the vessel vent off-gas and the material in a spent vessel vent silver reactor were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. Two gas sampling devices were used, a cold trap and an activated charcoal adsorber. The purpose of these analyses was to ascertain whether the reactor is trapping iodine, and to discover reasons for failure to trap it. 8 refs., 5 figs., 10 tabs.

• Research Organization: Battelle Pacific Northwest Lab., Richland, WA (USA)
• Sponsoring Organization: DOE/DP
• DOE Contract Number: AC06-76RL01830
• OSTI ID: 5673291
• Report Number(s): BNWL-CC-2188; ON: DE90001661
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

052001* -- Nuclear Fuels-- Waste Processing
053000 -- Nuclear Fuels-- Environmental Aspects
11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
ADSORBENTS
BETA DECAY RADIOISOTOPES
BETA-MINUS DECAY RADIOISOTOPES
CHARCOAL
CHEMICAL ANALYSIS
CONDENSERS
DAYS LIVING RADIOISOTOPES
EVALUATION
FILTERS
HANFORD RESERVATION
INTERMEDIATE MASS NUCLEI
IODINE 131
IODINE ISOTOPES
ISOTOPES
MANAGEMENT
NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
NUCLEI
ODD-EVEN NUCLEI
OFF-GAS SYSTEMS
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
PROCESSING
PUREX PROCESS
QUANTITATIVE CHEMICAL ANALYSIS
QUANTITY RATIO
RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT
RADIOACTIVE WASTE PROCESSING
RADIOISOTOPES
REPROCESSING
SAMPLING
SEPARATION PROCESSES
US DOE
US ERDA
US ORGANIZATIONS
WASTE MANAGEMENT
WASTE PROCESSING