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Norway’s Halden reactor takes first step toward decommissioning
The government of Norway has granted the transfer of the Halden research reactor from the Institute for Energy Technology (IFE) to the state agency Norwegian Nuclear Decommissioning (NND). The 25-MWt Halden boiling water reactor operated from 1958 to 2018 and was used in the research of nuclear fuel, reactor internals, plant procedures and monitoring, and human factors.
Darryl D. Siemer
Nuclear Technology | Volume 185 | Number 1 | January 2014 | Pages 100-108
Technical Note | Reprocessing | doi.org/10.13182/NT12-164
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The fuel reprocessing (recycling) system invoked by the developers of Oak Ridge National Laboratory's molten salt–based breeder (of 233U from 232Th) reactor (MSBR) would generate high-level reprocessing waste consisting of ∼3 mol % fission product fluoride salts in a matrix consisting primarily of sodium and potassium fluoride salts. This technical note discusses a management scenario for such waste that invokes the following steps: (a) mixing of the waste salt with dilute nitric acid with a pug mill; (b) volatilization/separation of the bulk of the fluoride as hydrofluoric acid (HF) with a wiped film evaporator; (c) vitrification of the thus “converted” (to nitrate) salt waste to an iron phosphate glass waste form with a stirred melter; (d) reduction of the nitric acid/NOx in the combined off-gas to elemental nitrogen with hot charcoal; (e) condensation of the water and HF in the reduced off-gas; (f) neutralization of that solution with an alkali (sodium and/or lithium and/or potassium) hydroxide; (g) drying of that solution to produce the fluoride salts utilized by the process; and finally, (h) off-gas disposal after treatment implemented with a condenser, wet electrostatic precipitator, catalytic converter, and high-efficiency particulate air filters. This scenario's advantages relative to those that invoke the preparation of a synthetic fluoride mineral (cation-substituted fluorapatite) waste form include much higher effective waste loading, lower cost, and a product (glass) more consistent with stakeholder expectations.
