A permanently magnetized high gradient magnetic filter for glove-box cleaning and increasing HEPA filter life

The purpose of this paper is to describe the structure and testing of a permanently magnetized magnetic filter on simulants for radioactive material. The experimental work was carried out at British Nuclear Fuels plc, Sellafield, England and in CEN/SCK, Mol, Belgium using Cr powder which is a good magnetic simulant for PuO2. The basis of the use of such a filter in the nuclear industry relies on the fact that much of the radioactive material is paramagnetic. In the last twenty years a separation technique has been developed which allows weakly paramagnetic particles of colloidal size to be separated from fluid which passes through the separator. This method is called high gradient magnetic separation (HGMS) and is accomplished by magnetizing a fine ferromagnetic wire matrix by an externally applied magnetic field. This paper describes a new approach to this problem, by using a magnetically hysteretic material to construct the ferromagnetic matrix, it has been possible to provide a magnetic field in the region of the matrix and also have a residual magnetization within the matrix. This provides extremely compact magnetic separation systems. There are some subtle differences between this separation system and conventional HGMS which makes the radial feed system, with all its advantages, almost mandatory for hysteretic HGMS