Development of on-Line Heavy Water Analysis by Vibrating Probe Density Meter and Multiple Internal Reflectance Infrared Spectrometry

摘要

Achieving high productivity in the Savannah River Plant nuclear reactors requires that the heavy water (D sub 2 O) moderator be maintained at a high purity level. Since the D sub 2 O purity will degrade with time, a fraction of the moderator must be continually reprocessed to remove H sub 2 O. This rework process uses a series of fractional distillation columns. The process control is based on laboratory analyses of process samples every four hours. The sample streams, which can range from 0.10 to 99.80 mol % D sub 2 O, are analyzed using infrared spectrophotometry. An automatic on-line analysis would provide tighter process control and reduce personnel exposure to the tritiated moderator. Two instruments are being evaluated for on-line control; an Anton/Parr DPR 2000 density measuring system and a General Analysis Corporation LAN-I infrared liquid stream monitor. (ERA citation 10:004404)