Taking in Nuclear Operation of the Plasma Facility for Treatment Industrial Radioactive Waste - 19346

摘要

The operation and maintenance of nuclear power plants, the nuclear fuel cycle in general, research laboratories and pharmaceutical, medical and industrial facilities generate low-level radioactive waste which, along with the historical radioactive waste from past nuclear activities, needs to be treated and stored, awaiting final disposal. Plasma technology offers a very effective way of treating this waste with a high volume reduction factor (VRF), free from organics, liquids and moisture, and meets without a doubt the acceptance criteria for safe storage and disposal. By means of a plasma beam of approximately 5000°C, the inorganic materials are melted into a glassy slag, containing most of the radioactive isotopes while the organic material is gasified and afterwards oxidized in an afterburner and purified in an off-gas cleaning system. This paper describes the principles of plasma, the different waste feed systems, off-gas treatment and operational experience and future plasma plants. More specifically, it presents the new full-scale plasma facility for the treatment of radioactive waste at the Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant in Bulgaria for which construction and assembly was finalized end of August 2016. It also describes in more detail the Site Acceptance Tests (SAT) of this facility. Previous paper describes the construction and testing of the plasma melting facility at the Kozloduy NPP in Bulgaria. Now the paper focus on the nuclear starting up conducted in May 2018 with real radioactive waste and illustrates the first operational results such as types of waste treated, volume reduction factors, etc The Project was co-financed through a grant by Kozloduy International Decommissiong fund (KIDSF) administated by the EBRD and through Bulgarian national funding -Nuclear Facilities Decommissioning Fund and Radioactive Waste Fund. The KIDSF is funded by the Eurpean Union as well by the contributors to the KIDSF - Austria, Belgium, France, Grece, Ireland, The Netherlands, Spain, United Kingdom and Switserland.