Study of innovative chemical processes for sodium fast reactor fuel assemblies cleaning

Within the framework of Sodium Fast Reactor, innovative solutions for fuel assemblies cleaning are investigated. This process consists in removing residual sodium to avoid water pollution and hydrogen production in water storage. It takes place before head operations of cooling and reprocessing. An innovative process that is currently tried out consists in the addition of mineral salts in the cleaning water. First, the process will be described from a theoretical point of view, then the experimental device, that enables the measurement of the impact of different mineral salts on the kinetics via pressure measurements or hydrogen analysis, will be presented. (authors)