Development of Spent Solvent Treatment Process by a Submerged Combustion Technique.

Abstract

An experimental study using a bench-scale equipment of 1 kg-simulated spent solvents per hour has been conducted in order to evaluate the applicability of a submerged combustion technique to the treatment of spent solvents contaminated with TRU elements. This report describes the experimental results on the combustion characteristics of the simulated spent solvents of tri-n-butyl phosphate and/or n-dodecane, and on the distribution behaviors of combustion products such as phosphoric acid, Ru, I, Zr and lanthanides as TRU simulants in the submerged combustion process. Also the experimental results of TRU separation from phosphoric acid solution by co-precipitation using bismuth phosphate are reported. It was shown that the submerged combustion technique was applicable to the treatment of spent solvents including the distillation residues of the solvent. Based on the experimental data, a new treatment process of spent solvent was proposed which consisted of submerged combustion, co-precipitation using bismuth phosphate, ceramic membrane filtration, cementation of TRU lean phosphate, and vitrification of TRU rich waste.