Krypton absorption in liquid CO2 (KALC): Campaign III in the Experimental Engineering Section Off-Gas Decontamination Facility

Results are presented for the third major campaign for quantifying krypton removal from simulated High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor reprocessing off-gas by the KALC process. The Experimental Engineering Section Off-Gas Decontamination Facility used in the campaign provides engineering-scale experiments with nominal gas and liquid flows of 5 scfm and 0.5 gpm, respectively. Mass transfer experiments for the CO2--O2--Kr system are described for the absorption, fractionation, and stripping operations of the KALC process. A detailed discussion of the data analysis is included. The analysis indicates nominal HTU values for the absorber, fractionator, and stripper on the order of 0.4, 0.5, and 0.7 ft, respectively. Flooding data for the packed columns are combined with previous data and are shown to be well represented by an empirical flooding equation