Technology and Facility for Incinerating Irradiated Reactor Graphite

Abstract

The USG-1 facility was developed to incinerate spent reactor graphite. It is equipped with a monitoring and control system; its maximum capacity is 10 kg/h. Trial combustion of a batch of unirradiated graphite was conducted. The tests showed that the units in the facility are serviceable and irradiated reactor graphite can be incinerated directly in an air flow. For a 1.5 kg load of graphite, the burn rate at 900°C was equal to 0.3 kg/h. The burn rate increases with increasing load. The incineration of irradiated graphite bushings of the EI-2 reactor in the USG-1 incinerator was studied at PDC UGR. The completeness of incineration was 95% and the ¹³⁷Cs catching efficiency was 95%. With modification of the gas purification unit, the USG-1 incinerator can be used to burn irradiated graphite contaminated by traces of nuclear fuel and in monitoring the atmospheric emissions of ¹⁴CO₂.