Tellurium retention by containment spray system
Journal article, 2021

A containment spray system is used to mitigate the source term from the containment building to the environment as part of the severe accident management actions. Tellurium is one of the volatile fission products and many of the tellurium isotopes decay into iodine, which causes a threat to the public due to its radiotoxicity and build-up in the thyroid gland. The removal efficiency of the containment spray system model against tellurium species formed under severe accident conditions was investigated with experiments and MELCOR simulations. The results indicated efficient removal of tellurium aerosols in the air atmosphere, whereas a decrease in the efficiency was observed in the nitrogen atmosphere. Gaseous tellurium species were not formed in significant amounts during the experiments and therefore, the removal efficiency due to different spray chemistry conditions could not be accurately analysed. However, the alkaline chemicals used in the spray solution seemed to form airborne particles, increasing the overall aerosol transport in the process independently of CsI or Te aerosol transport.

Tellurium

Severe accident

MELCOR

Source term

Containment spray system

Author

T. Karkela

Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT)

Anna-Elina Pasi

Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Energy and Material

Fredrik Espegren

Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Energy and Material

Tuomo Sevón

Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT)

Unto Tapper

Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT)

Christian Ekberg

Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Energy and Material

Annals of Nuclear Energy

0306-4549 (ISSN) 1873-2100 (eISSN)

Vol. 164 108622

Subject Categories

Construction Management

Energy Systems

Environmental Sciences

DOI

10.1016/j.anucene.2021.108622

More information

Latest update

8/27/2021