Decontamination of low-level process effluents by reverse osmosis

A new facility is under construction at the Savannah River Plant to decontaminate process effluents containing low levels of radionuclides and hazardous chemicals prior to discharge to a surface stream. The facility is called the F/H Effluent Treatment Facility (F/H ETF). The effluentes are composed primarily of evaporator condensates which are currently discharged to seepage basins. The new facility will allow closure of the basins in order to meet the provisions of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. The 50 million dollar facility will contain advanced water treatment systems representative of the best currently available technology. The paper paper describes the facility and summarizes bench and pilot scale process development work that has been used to establish the design bases for the facility