Approach to CANDU Spent Resin Management

Abstract

Among the various approaches to manage spent resins from nuclear power plants, the treatment of CANDU resins by drying, followed by hot super-compaction and packaging provides a waste volume reduction of up to five for long-term storage or final disposal. The additional benefit of carbon-14 removal from some CANDU spent resins during the drying process would allow reclassification of the processed resin to “Less-than or Equal-to US Class C” low-level radioactive waste. The recovered carbon-14 would be managed as low-volume, “Greater-than-Class C” waste consisting of metal carbonates stabilized in cement, or could be further volume-reduced in a carbide waste form, if necessary. This paper presents experimental performance data for carbon-14 removal and stabilized waste-forms based on actual and simulated spent-resin samples. The paper also describes the implications of management of the volume-reduced, low-carbon-14 resin waste compared to spent resins stored without drying and compaction.