Development of electric cation exchanger for high pH secondary water of PWR plants

Conductivity meter which measures the sample passed through the cation exchange resin (It is named as the following, acidic cation conductivity meter) is important as a meter which detects the seawater leakage of condenser in the secondary water of PWR plants. However regular regeneration works are necessary for the cation exchange resin because it gets rid of ammonia contained in condensate water, and it takes much maintenance time. Especially recently, high pH operation is being carried out, and therefore the regeneration work of the resin in necessary in every one week. The electric cation exchanger, which an electric dialysis film was used for as a substitution of the cation exchange resin, was developed, and produced to reduce maintenance frequency as much as possible. So, it considered whether the electric cation exchanger could cope with high pH operation in the PWR plant, because high pH operation will be applied, recently. Some examinations were enforced in the PWR plant and at our factory, so the performance of the improved electric cation exchanger was confirmed. This paper introduces the results of this examination. (author)