U.S. Department of EnergyOffice of Scientific and Technical Information
Carbon dioxide-krypton separation and radon removal from nuclear-fuel-reprocessing off-gas streams
Abstract
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.more »
- Authors:
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- General Atomic Co., San Diego, CA (USA)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 5363147
- Report Number(s):
- GA-A-16809; CONF-820833-5
ON: DE82018288
- DOE Contract Number:
- AT03-76SF71053
- Resource Type:
- Conference
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 17. DOE nuclear air cleaning conference, Denver, CO, USA, 1 Aug 1982
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES; 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
Citation Formats
Hirsch, P M, Higuchi, K Y, and Abraham, L. Carbon dioxide-krypton separation and radon removal from nuclear-fuel-reprocessing off-gas streams. United States: N. p., 1982.
Web.
Hirsch, P M, Higuchi, K Y, & Abraham, L. Carbon dioxide-krypton separation and radon removal from nuclear-fuel-reprocessing off-gas streams. United States.
Hirsch, P M, Higuchi, K Y, and Abraham, L. 1982.
"Carbon dioxide-krypton separation and radon removal from nuclear-fuel-reprocessing off-gas streams". United States. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/5363147.
@article{osti_5363147,
title = {Carbon dioxide-krypton separation and radon removal from nuclear-fuel-reprocessing off-gas streams},
author = {Hirsch, P M and Higuchi, K Y and Abraham, L},
abstractNote = {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.},
doi = {},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/5363147},
journal = {},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {Thu Jul 01 00:00:00 EDT 1982},
month = {Thu Jul 01 00:00:00 EDT 1982}
}