The Criteria of flushing phenomena under microwave heating

Yamaki, Tatsunori*; Abe, Yutaka*; Kaneko, Akiko*; Segawa, Tomoomi ; Kawaguchi, Koichi  ; Yamada, Yoshikazu ; Fujii, Kanichi*

In the Microwave Heating de-nitration method developed in Japan, a mixed solution of uranyl nitrate and plutonium nitrate recovered from the spent fuel in the reprocessing plant is converted directly to mixed oxide (MH-MOX) powder. This MH-MOX powder is utilized to fabricate MOX fuel with UO powder for FBR. The MH method is accompanied with transient boiling phenomena such as overflow and flushing. Toward high-speed and high-capacity conversion by MH-method in the future, it is required to avoid overflow and flushing and to understand optimal design conditions for design and operation. At the first step for these objectives, basic knowledge of transient boiling phenomena by the MH-method has been acquired with using distilled water. It was observed that generation of singular bubble triggered flushing and distilled water just before flushing was superheated by a temperature 10 degrees centigrade higher than boiling temperature. Based on these results, it is clarified that the occurrence criteria of flushing correlate with absorbed power in the water and released power from the water surface.