Voloxidizer

A voloxidizer and electroreduction cell are pieces of equipment specific to spent oxide fuels treatment. Voloxidation is a well-known technique; however, most experiments have been carried out at the laboratory scale. KAERI is developing engineering-scale voloxidizers for decladding and pulverization of oxide fuel. A voloxidizer of 20 kg HM/batch was designed to oxidize fuels on a vibrating mesh where powdered products are sepa­rated from unreacted chunks of fuel. The effectiveness of the vibration on the oxidation rate was reported for the tests with 20 kg unirradiated UO2 (Kim, 2005). Figure 10.24 shows a new model of the voloxidizer, equipped with a rotating mesh basket in the furnace. The chopped spent fuels are crushed by impact from a ceramic ball, and small pieces of pellet are pulver­ized by oxidation. The fuel powder is collected in the collector located under the mesh basket. In this voloxidizer, simulated fuels (90% W and 10% SiO2) equivalent to 20 kg spent fuel were tested. Oxidation was completed in 13 hrs, and the obtained recovery ratios for hull and powders were 100% and 97.6%, respectively (Kim, 2009).

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10.24 High throughput voloxidizer of KAERI.