scholarly journals Development of a test system for high level liquid waste partitioning

2015 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 311-317
Author(s):  
Wu Duan ◽  
Jing Chen ◽  
Jian Wang ◽  
Shu Wang ◽  
Xing Wang

The partitioning and transmutation strategy has increasingly attracted interest for the safe treatment and disposal of high level liquid waste, in which the partitioning of high level liquid waste is one of the critical technical issues. An improved total partitioning process, including a tri-alkylphosphine oxide process for the removal of actinides, a crown ether strontium extraction process for the removal of strontium, and a calixcrown ether cesium extraction process for the removal of cesium, has been developed to treat Chinese high level liquid waste. A test system containing 72-stage 10-mm-diam annular centrifugal contactors, a remote sampling system, a rotor speed acquisition-monitoring system, a feeding system, and a video camera-surveillance system was successfully developed to carry out the hot test for verifying the improved total partitioning process. The test system has been successfully used in a 160 hour hot test using genuine high level liquid waste. During the hot test, the test system was stable, which demonstrated it was reliable for the hot test of the high level liquid waste partitioning.

Author(s):  
Meng Wei ◽  
Xuegang Liu ◽  
Jing Chen

To reduce the long-term risk of the high-level liquid waste (HLLW) and the waste disposal cost, transuranium (TRU) elements should be removed from HLLW. A so-called TRPO process has been developed by Chinese scientists to partition HLLW. In this process, the extractant, trialkyl phosphine oxide (TRPO), is able to extract TRU elements into organic phase completely, which makes the treatment and disposal of raffinate HLLW much easier. However, the treatment of extracted TRU elements in organic phase, in return, becomes new troublesome issue. Generally, there are three promising ways to treat the extracted TRU elements: (1)transmutation; (2)conditioning; (3)recycling U+Pu in Purex-TRPO Integrated Process. In any of the three ways, the back extraction agents and processes play significant roles. In this paper, the investigations on back extraction agents for TRU elements, such as TTHA, DTPA, AHA, HEDPA, DOGA, and carbonates are introduced. The corresponding back extraction processes and experimental results are reviewed.


2001 ◽  
Vol 89 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Jianchen ◽  
S. Chongli

The crown ether strontium extraction(CESE) process for partitioning strontium from HLLW was studied. A hot test was carried out in a counter current mode with genuine HLLW by using a miniature centrifugal contactor set. 0.1 mol/L DCH18C6 in 1-octanol was used as extractant. The feed solution was the HLLW raffinate of TRPO process after removing TRU elements. Acidity of the feed was 1.45 mol/L HNO


2014 ◽  
Vol 278 ◽  
pp. 566-571 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wuhua Duan ◽  
Jing Chen ◽  
Jianchen Wang ◽  
Shuwei Wang ◽  
Xiaogui Feng ◽  
...  

2012 ◽  
Vol 560-561 ◽  
pp. 637-643
Author(s):  
Yong Li ◽  
Xue Gang Liu ◽  
Jin Chen

The proper management of spent fuel arising from nuclear power production is a key issue for the sustainable development of nuclear energy. While conventional reprocessing process, PUREX process, was successful to recover uranium and plutonium, in recent years some countries have turned to focus on advanced reprocessing process, which features of partitioning of minor actinides (MA) and long-lived fission products(LLFP). Most advanced reprocessing processes under development involve new extractants and additional extraction cycles. In China, TRPO extraction process has been developed to partition MA/LLFP from high-level liquid waste(HLLW) since early 1980’s. In parallel to R&D work on separation technologies, studies on concentration & denitration process have been evolved to prepare feed solutions to suit qualifications of extraction. Industrially, concentration & denitration is the internationally recognized standard to treat HLLW released from PUREX before vitrification. It enables to minimize the volume of interim storage, to restrain the corrosion of storage tank, to recover nitric acid in HLLW and to reduce the required evaporation duty of the vitrification process. Generally, the constitution of concentrated HLLW has little impact on the following vitrification process. But when concentration & denitration acts as pretreatment process of partitioning, the composition of actinides, fission products, and nitric acid in concentrated HLLW solution plays significant role in extraction process. A series of technical issues relevant to the connection between concentration ﹠denitration and extractions should be solved. This paper describes current status of concentration & denitration technology utilized in industry and under reprocessing plants. The specific separation requirements in advanced reprocessing process and challenges to apply concentration & denitration process are addressed. Besides, concentration & denitration process was tested in laboratory to adjust feed solutions for TRPO and Cyanex301 partitioning. Results demonstrate its promising prospect in advanced reprocessing process.


Author(s):  
Sou Watanabe ◽  
Ichiro Goto ◽  
Yuichi Sano ◽  
Yoshikazu Koma

Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) is conducting R&D of the engineering scale extraction chromatography system, which uses silica-based adsorbents impregnated with an extractant for the minor actinides (Am and Cm) recovery from the high level liquid waste generated in the spent FBR fuel reprocessing, as a part of the Fast Reactor Cycle Technology Development (FaCT) project. A bench scale testing system was made and provided for the first step of development. The column of the test system (ID 480 or 200 mmΦ with 650 mm height) was equipped with ports for 6 external sensors at its top, middle and bottom levels for measuring the flow velocity or temperature, and for additional 6 heaters for simulating the decay heat of Am and Cm at the middle level of the column. The flow velocity distribution was almost constant except for the very near at the column wall, and it was almost uniform when the liquid flew from top to bottom direction with 4 cm/min of the velocity. The heaters scarcely influenced on the temperature profile inside the column when the power applied to the heater simulated the decay heat of Am, Cm and FPs. The decay heat generated in the column was transported to the effluents and the temperature inside column was kept almost constant.


2000 ◽  
Vol 88 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Malmbeck ◽  
O. Courson ◽  
G. Pagliosa ◽  
K. Römer ◽  
B. Sätmark ◽  
...  

Among several processes proposed world-wide, the French DIAMEX (DIAMide EXtraction) process seems to be very efficient for the removal of Minor Actinides (MA) from genuine High Level Liquid Waste (HLLW). The MA are in this process directly extracted from the PUREX (Plutonium Uranium Redox EXtraction) raffinate together with fission lanthanides using the completely combustible diamide extractant. In this work a hot demonstration of the DIAMEX process using genuine high-level PUREX raffinate is reported. The continuous counter-current experiment was carried out in a 16 stage centrifugal extractor battery, installed in a hot cell. In order to produce a representative HLLW a PUREX process was applied on dissolved fuel using the same equipment. In the DIAMEX process up to 6 extraction stages were sufficient to achieve feed decontamination factors between 100 and 230 for lanthanides and above 300 for minor actinides. Co-extraction of molybdenum and zirconium were efficiently prevented using oxalic acid scrubbing. The back extraction proved to be very efficient, yielding in 4 stages more than 99.9% recovery of both the lanthanides and the actinides. Co-extracted ruthenium, technetium, palladium and neptunium are less efficiently back-extracted requiring further process development.


Author(s):  
R. Do Quang ◽  
V. Petitjean ◽  
F. Hollebecque ◽  
O. Pinet ◽  
T. Flament ◽  
...  

The performance of the vitrification process currently used in the La Hague commercial reprocessing plants has been continuously improved during more than ten years of operation. In parallel COGEMA (industrial Operator), the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) and SGN (respectively COGEMA’s R&D provider and Engineering) have developed the cold crucible melter vitrification technology to obtain greater operating flexibility, increased plant availability and further reduction of secondary waste generated during operations. The cold crucible is a compact water-cooled melter in which the radioactive waste and the glass additives are melted by direct high frequency induction. The cooling of the melter produces a soldified glass layer that protects the melter’s inner wall from corrosion. Because the heat is transferred directly to the melt, high operating temperatures can be achieved with no impact on the melter itself. COGEMA plans to implement the cold crucible technology to vitrify high level liquid waste from reprocessed spent U-Mo-Sn-Al fuel (used in gas cooled reactor). The cold crucible was selected for the vitrification of this particularly hard-to-process waste stream because it could not be reasonably processed in the standard hot induction melters currently used at the La Hague vitrification facilities: the waste has a high molybdenum content which makes it very corrosive and also requires a special high temperature glass formulation to obtain sufficiently high waste loading factors (12% in molybednum). A special glass formulation has been developed by the CEA and has been qualified through lab and pilot testing to meet standard waste acceptance criteria for final disposal of the U-Mo waste. The process and the associated technologies have been also being qualified on a full-scale prototype at the CEA pilot facility in Marcoule. Engineering study has been integrated in parallel in order to take into account that the Cold Crucible should be installed remotely in one of the R7 vitrification cell. This paper will present the results obtained in the framework of these qualification programs.


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