Development of solvent regeneration process

Abstract

AbstractThe useful life of the hydrocarbon-tri-butyl phosphate solvent system in nuclear fuel reprocessing plant is limited by the extent of formation of secondary degradation compounds. These are formed by the interaction of nitric and nitrous acids with the various hydrocarbon compounds under the conditions of radiation. One of the easily deployable methods for the removal of these degradation products (secondary degradation products) is distillation. The instability of tri-n-butyl phosphate at elevated temperatures and the requirement that very low concentrations of variety of impurities that have to be removed call for a careful design of process and equipment. A pilot plant scale solvent purification system based on vacuum distillation has been designed, developed, and commissioned at the Reprocessing Development Laboratory, Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research. The solvent recovery system is an integration of different liquid–vapor separation units such as dehydration column, agitated thin film ...