Testing of an Integrated Nitrogen Oxide Catcher

Abstract

A gas-purification system with maximum capacity 50 m³/h was developed, fabricated, and tested to catch nitrogen oxides released during hydrometallurgical processing of spent fuel from the BREST reactor. To catch nitrogen oxides, the setup employs water aerosols introduced into the gas duct; it also includes a tank for mixing water aerosols with gas flow, coarse and fine filters, and BRUNS and SMOG apparatus. The filtering complex (mixing tank, FCGO and FAROS filters) gave 72–76% conversion of nitrogen dioxide with initial concentration of 11 g/m³; this confirmed that aerosol fiberglass filters can be used to catch nitrogen dioxide. In the tests, the complex of units comprising the setup gave 95.4–98.5% conversion of nitrogen oxide with initial concentration 11–50 g/m³. After the design of the mixing tanks is improved and remote extraction of the cartridges of the gas purification apparatus is organized, the tested gas purification setup can be used in radiochemical production.