Cobalt and organics removal effect using fiber filter/reverse osmosis combination process for LLRW from korean PWR NPP

Evaporation system for liquid radioactive waste process has been used in Korean PWR nuclear power plants. The system is the most desirable process for decontamination factor (DF) theoretically. However, during the operation of the system, various problems have been arising such as scaling, carry over, etc. Because these problems make DF low, advanced technologies for liquid radwaste process have been world widely developed instead of keeping evaporation system. The main goal of new technologies is ALARA, ease of operation, cost effectiveness and minimization of environmental effect. Korea Electric Power Corporation is currently developing a combined treatment process for liquid radwaste using Micro-filter, Ultra-filter, Reverse Osmosis (RO) membrane, etc for the purpose of partly enhancement of evaporator and of having an alternative liquid radwaste process system for new reactors. As a part of the above project, the feasibility study using the Rolled Fiber-Filter (RFF) and RO membrane has been carried out. This paper reports the results of lab-test from the combined process of the fiber filtration and RO membrane module for cobalt and organics removal. The study was especially focused on the boric acid permeation in the RO unit. Because boric acid occupies large volume of the final waste after evaporation process, the new technology such as RO process has to be studied on the boron process. (author)