A DECONTAMINATION PROCESS FOR METAL （金属的净化过程）.pdfVIP

WM’03 Conference, February 23-27, Tucson, AZ A DECONTAMINATION PROCESS FOR METAL SCRAPS FROM THE DECOMMISSIONING OF TRR T. Y. Wei, J. S. Gan, K. M. Lin and Z. J. Chung Institute of Nuclear Energy Research, Chemical Engineering Division P. O. Box 3-7, Lungtan, Taiwan, ROC ABSTRACT A decontamination facility including surface condition categorizing, blasting, chemical/electrochemical cleaning, very low radioactivity measuring, and melting, is being established at INER. The facility will go into operation by the end of 2004. The main purpose is to clean the dismantled metal wastes from the decommissioning of Taiwan Research Reactor (TRR). The pilot test shows that over 70% of low level metal waste can be decontaminated to very low activity and can be categorized as BRC (below regulatory concern) waste. All the chemical decontamination technologies applied are developed by INER. In order to reduce the secondary wastes, chemical reagents will be regenerated several times with a selective precipitation method. The exhausted chemical reagent will be solidified with INER’s patented process. The total secondary waste is estimated about 0.1-0.3 wt.% of the original waste. This decontamination process is accessed to be economic and feasible. INTRODUCTION The difficulty of finding a disposal site for radioactive wastes calls for the effort to reuse or release the wastes after suitable decontamination become necessary and profitable. Especially, Taiwan is a mountainous island, the high density of population further limits the available area for disposal site. Reduction of the radioactive waste is much urgently concerned. At present about 3000 barrels of metal waste are stored