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North American construction is back—smaller and faster—at OPG’s Darlington
“The nuclear renaissance is real here,” said Ontario Power Generation’s Subo Sinnathamby on May 8, one year to the day after OPG secured a final investment decision to build the first of four planned BWRX-300 reactors at its Darlington nuclear power plant, and shortly after the new reactor’s foundation was lifted into place. “We got our license to construct in April and our [final investment decision] in May, and we’ve been off to the races since.”
A.B. Antoniazzi, W.T. Shmayda
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 30 | Number 3 | December 1996 | Pages 879-884
Fuel Cycle and Tritium Technology | doi.org/10.13182/FST96-A11963048
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Tritiated waste and glovebox cleanup systems contain significant levels of trititated methane impurities which require reducing and processing to recover the tritium. A viable approach to the recovery of tritium is the conversion of tritiated methane into elemental tritium and carbon by thermal cracking on a heated metal matrix.
Through the conversion reaction of HTO/H2O with hot Al4C3 powder, tritiated methane concentrations in the 0.4 to 0.9 mCi/m3 range are achievable. The HTO/H2O ratio is ~10-7.
Conversion efficiencies for the decomposition of methane are measured for Zr-Fe-Mn alloy, iron oxide and supported nickel catalyst. HT and HTO are created by decomposing methane. Zr-Fe-Mn alloy achieved a maximum conversion efficiency of ~70% at 700°C. Iron oxide thermally cracked methane at 36% at a temperature of 700°C. Supported nickel operating at 450°C achieved conversion efficiencies ranging from 65 to 100%.