ATOMIZATION AND TRANSPORT OF RADIONUCLIDES IN A PLASMA FOR ION-PLASMA DEACTIVATION TECHNOLOGY FOR NUCLEAR POWER PLANT EQUIPMENT AND SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL PROCESSING

Abstract

The solution to relevant problems of nuclear power industry such as the deactivation of nuclear power plants, hot cell, equipment for isotope separation, reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel for the effective closure of the nuclear fuel cycle is discussed. The ion-plasma “dry” technology developed to solve these problems is reported. The operating parameters of the ion-plasma technology for decontamination and reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel have been obtained, including inert gas pressure 0.1–1 atm., flow rate of the inert carrier gas 1–10 m/s, and current density 1–5 A/cm² at the operating voltage of 100–1000 V. Using the example of spent nuclear fuel reprocessing, the ranges of partial pressures and deposition temperatures of spent nuclear fuel elements during the process of its separation according to elemental composition have been calculated. Due to the difference in the condensation temperature ranges of each spent fuel element, purification of uranium and plutonium from most fission products of MOX and SNUP spent fuel with a purity of at least 99% is demonstrated.