Volume reduction of spent radioactive ion-exchange material

Abstract

Abstract A process for reducing the volume of spent organic radioactive ion-exchange material which has been used for conditioning water circulated through a nuclear reactor. The spent radioactive ion-exchange material is removed from the reactor system and inserted into a dryer, where the residual free water and some of the intrinsic water in the ion-exchange material is removed so that the ion-exchange material has a moisture content less than 50% by weight. The dried ion-exchange material is then inserted into a fluid bed reactor, a carrier gas is inserted into the reactor and fluidizes the ion-exchange material, and the ion-exchange material is heated. The heating thermally decomposes the ion-exchange material, producing an effluent gas, which contains the volatile decomposition products. The carrier gas and the effluent gas are removed from the fluid bed reactor. After the thermal decomposition, or pyrolysis, is completed, the insertion of the carrier gas into the reactor is stopped and an oxygen-containing gas is inserted into the reactor. The remaining ion-exchange material is burned with the oxygen-containing gas, and a volume reduction of approximately 20:1, depending on the inorganic species loading, is obtained from the original settled bed volume of ion-exchange material to the end product.

Inventors

• 👤 Erich W. Tiepel
• 👤 Christopher K. Wu
• 👤 Arnold S. Kitzes

Bibliographic Details