Development of centrifugal contactor system in JNC

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鷲谷 忠博 ; 竹内 正行 ; 荻野 英樹; 青瀬 晋一

Washiya, Tadahiro; Takeuchi, Masayuki; Ogino, Hideki; Aose, Shinichi

高速増殖炉サイクルの実用化戦略調査研究では、再処理システムの候補技術の1つに湿式再処理技術が挙げられその抽出工程機器に遠心抽出器の適用が想定されている。サイクル機構では溶媒劣化の軽減、機器稼働率の向上、機器配置のコンパクト化、臨界安全の優位性等の観点から、1980年代より遠心抽出器を開発してきた。これまでに単機開発をほぼ終了し抽出性能、流動性能、オーバーフロー及びエントレイメントの発生等の基礎特性を把握し、。また、高寿命化の検討として、耐久性試験を実施し硝酸ミスト対策の実施及び機器寿命の推定、高耐久性の磁気軸受型機の開発等を実施してきた。また、工学規模の遠心抽出器を用いた試験設備を整備しウラン試験を実施中である。本報では、サイクル機構における遠心抽出器の開発概要を報告する。

Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute (JNC) has been developing centrifugal contactors which are compact and high performance for solvent extraction process in industrial reprocessing plant. Centrifugal contactor has some advantages which are more compact, smaller holdup volume and higher separation performance than conventional contactor such as mixer-settler or pulse column and contributes to economic advantage and reduction of solvent waste. In addition, the compact contactor is easy to manage the critical safety, and the operation ratio for fuel treatment can be improved because of short start-up and shut-down time. Since 1985, JNC stared the development of centrifugal contactor and then fundamental design was established for engineering scale hot test plant (RETF). The life time was evaluated by the result of endurance test, and system performance of multi-stages contactor on engineering scale was demonstrated. [1] In addition, several types of advanced contactors have been developing. This paper introduces the development of centrifugal contactor in JNC