Venturi washers to increase the efficiency of decontamination evaporation plants

Radioactive effluents from nuclear power plants are decontaminated prior to their drainage, whereby in general draining canal values are obtained that are well below those permitted according to the radiation protection specification. Evaporation processes are suitable for the decontamination for which conventional evaporation plants must be accordingly adapted in order to allow for the particularities of the radioactive medium. It could be shown in a pilot plant in cooperation with the KFA Juelich that Venturi washers for droplet separation can increase the efficiency of the decontamination plant by two powers of ten with little expenditure. One may thus do away with methods of rectification or distillation and avoid incrustation of the evaporator to a considerable extent. (orig.)