Process for the detritiation of soft housekeeping waste and plant thereof

摘要

A process for removal of tritium from materials that are contaminated thereby envisages the use of a detritiation reactor RT, in which the reaction for the removal of tritium from the waste takes place, the waste being recovered by a flow of moist inert gas in which an extremely low percentage of humidity is used. The heated waste releases a current of tritiated gases, the current of gases being removed from the reactor via the moist inert gas, which conveys it into a membrane reactor RM for decontamination. The membrane reactor, in fact, is able to remove selectively the tritium present in the mixture of gases: there is thus the dual advantage of purifying the mixture of gases and of recovering the tritium contained therein.

主权项

1. A process for the detritiation of radioactive waste containing tritium, comprising:
carrying out a thermal desorption by subjecting said waste, placed in a detritiation reactor (RT), to a flow of moist gas and subsequently recovering tritium in the form of gas by means of a membrane reactor (RM) in order to valorize the tritium for re-use, the thermal desorption comprising the following sub-steps:
A) shredding and uniformly mixing the waste to be detritiated;B) placing said waste in a detritiation reactor (RT);C) sending inert gas and demineralized water to an evaporation/mixing device;D) feeding a moist gaseous mixture, constituted by said inert gas and vapour formed from said demineralized water, to said detritiation reactor (RT) so that said moist gaseous mixture traverses all the waste, giving rise to a formation of a moist gaseous current containing tritium;E) sending said gaseous current containing tritium to a membrane reactor (RM); andF) feeding said membrane reactor (RM) with a swamping gas, thus obtaining exit from the membrane reactor (RM) itself, as end products, of a gaseous current of isotopes containing tritium extracted from the waste and of a gaseous current of detritiated gases.