THE ALPHA WASTE INCINERATOR AT CEA VALDUCASSESSMENT AND IMPROVEMENT OF THE ACTIVE WASTE INCINERATION

摘要

The operation of the facilities at the Valduc center, which belongs to CEA’s Military Applications, generatesalpha-contaminated organic wastes. An incineration plant has been built to treat the contaminated combustiblewaste.The process allows to reduce volume and weight, but also produces ash in a grade suitable for in-linevitrification, or plutonium recovery by argentic dissolution.The active waste incineration has been operated for four years.This paper presents the incineration process and the salient facts concerning the incineration, the feedbackfrom the operation and the maintenance in active conditions during these four years. It makes an overallreview of the active incineration campaigns, the cumulative incineration time, the quantity and type of wasteincinerated, and the quantity of ashes and fine particles produced.Research and developments have been performed on the nonradioactive prototype of the IRIS process at theCEA’s Marcoule Research center, in order to improve the process and make it more flexible. The adaptationof these developments to the alpha waste incinerator at CEA Valduc is discussed in this paper.