Tritiated Waste Management Opportunities Based On The Reduction Of Tritium Activity And Out-gassing

D. Canas (1) , C. Decanis (1) , D. Dall'Ava (1) , J. Pamela (1)

1 CEA-DES (ex-DEN) - CEA-Direction des Energies (ex-Direction de l'Energie Nucléaire)

The so-called Tritiated waste contains tritium as the main radionuclide and is produced by nuclear research, fusion facilities and small producers (hospitals, research centres and industries). The management of this type of waste can be improved, using techniques in reducing tritium activity and out-gassing.The several options are presented depending on the waste form and the amount of tritium temporary storage for tritium decay up to 50 years, thermal treatment such as incineration and melting, and high integrity containers conditioning, considered alone or in combination.The comparison involves the environmental impact assessed by the tritium releases, the secondary waste management, the volume reduction of the waste to be disposed and the activity of waste after treatment, as well as the safety issues, the performances of the techniques used in each option and the economical point of view.The results obtained are shown. The advantages and drawbacks of each global chain are presented.

Keywords: tritium; tritiated waste; incineration; thermal treatment; fusion; interim storage

Domains: Nuclear Experiment [nucl-ex]; Nuclear Theory [nucl-th]

D. Canas, C. Decanis, D. Dall'Ava, J. Pamela. Tritiated Waste Management Opportunities Based On The Reduction Of Tritium Activity And Out-gassing. WM2015 - Waste Management 2015, Mar 2015, Phoenix, United States. ⟨cea-02489488⟩