Pressure Swing Adsorption Process for Reduction of Argon-41 Release from Nuclear Reactor Exhaust Systems

Abstract

In several nuclear reactors, huge quantity of air (in the order of 10,000 cmh) is continuously passed to cool the calandria vault. This results in high radiation field due to argon-41. It is necessary to isolate and recover argon from these environments, which can bring down the activity release to the atmosphere in attaining ALARA principle. Pressure swing adsorption (PSA) technique has been employed by combining molecular sieves 5A (MS5A) and carbon molecular sieves (CMS) beds in series for the separation of argon from air. The analysis and results of varying certain parameters for optimization of argon purity and recovery have been studied. This paper includes theoretically calculated values on the activity of argon-41 obtained during the above experiments. The results of the same are discussed by considering the condition that exhaust streams of reactor containment building (RB) of a typical atomic power station are being fed to the system. From the studies carried out, it is found that using MS 5A PSA system the average argon-41 release 40 Bq/ml can be reduced to 13.6 Bq/ml with volume reduction factors in the order of ten. If combined system is employed, then the argon release can be reduced to 24 Bq/ml with a volume reduction factors in the order of 60.

Keywords: Argon-41, MS 5A, CMS, PSA, gamma activity

Cite this Article: Pradip Kumar, M. Cheralathan, S. Sathish. Pressure Swing Adsorption Process for Reduction of Argon-41 Release from Nuclear Reactor Exhaust Systems. Journal of Nuclear Engineering & Technology. 2015; 5(1): 25-28p.