Development of centrifugal contactor system in JNC

Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute (JNC) has been developing centrifugal contactors which are compact and high performance for solvent extraction process in industrial reprocessing plant. Centrifugal contactor has some advantages which are more compact, smaller holdup volume, and higher separation performance than conventional contactor such as mixer-settler or pulse column. It contributes to economic advantage and reduction of solvent waste. In addition, the compact contactor is easy to manage the critical safety, and the operation ratio for fuel treatment can be improved because of short start-up and shut-down time. Since 1985, JNC has been developing the centrifugal contactor and fundamental design was established for engineering scale hot test plant (RETF). The life time was evaluated by the result of endurance test, and system performance of multi-stages contactor on engineering scale was demonstrated. In addition, several advanced type contactors have been developing. This paper introduces the development of centrifugal contactor in JNC. (author)