Decontamination of Metal from Uranium Lifecycle Facilities

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Brian Gihm

Abstract

The uranium lifecycle facilities such as mines, mills, conversion, enrichment and fuel fabrication facilities generate substantial quantities of radioactive metallic waste, such as tools, pipes, pumps, scaffolds, ducts and various small components. The majority of the metallic waste is only surface contaminated with uranic particles. These surface-contaminated metals can be decontaminated by removing the surface contaminants, and they are potentially free released and recycled.

While several surface decontamination technologies are currently used, including high- pressure jet washing, grit blasting, laser ablation, electropolishing, chemical decontamination, and melting the decontamination process flow is complex and highly manual. The contaminated materials need to be characterized, inspected and sorted before processing, and they have to be handled multiple times by people during the decontamination and free-release process.

Furthermore, the majority of the waste exhibits complex geometry (e.g., small diameter pipes, bent or crushed metals, bolts and nuts with groves, springs, etc.), and it is not possible to dislodge very fine radioactive particles from joint cracks completely. Thus, complex geometry wastes are difficult to decontaminate to the free release level.

Hatch is developing a novel ultrasonic cleaning technology that allows full decontamination of complex solid waste to the free release level. As the technology is not discriminant in the waste geometry, shape, size, or nature of contaminants, waste characterization, sorting, and segregation processes can be eliminated from the decontamination process. This will result in a significant reduction in labour costs and an improvement in decontamination efficiency and speed.

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