ITEMS

modern scholarly publishers in the finest tradition

	Search

ICHMT DIGITAL LIBRARY ONLINE

ISSN 961-91393-0-5

Individual price:

$246.00 (Must be sent to your home address)

You can order single issue or individual article. To purchase a single issue or an individual article as well as to view tables of contents and abstracts click on issue number.

Institutional price:

$518.00

Volumes per year:

various

For Online Access

Year 1995

• 1Heat and Mass Transfer in Severe Nuclear Reactor Accidents
Proceedings of International Symposium - 22 -26 May, 1995, Kusadasi, Turkey

708 pages

Volume price - $176.00

CATALYTIC RECOMBINERS FOR SEVERE ACCIDENT HYDROGEN

G. W. Koroll
AECL, Whiteshell Laboratories, Pinawa, Manitoba ROE 1L0, CANADA

W. A. Dewit
AECL, Whiteshell Laboratories, Pinawa, Manitoba ROE 1L0, CANADA

D. W. P. Lau
AECL, Whiteshell Laboratories Pinawa, Manitoba ROE 1LO, CANADA

ABSTRACT

Catalytic recombiners have been developed at AECL for the purpose of hydrogen removal in post-accident nuclear containment buildings. The recombienrs are based on a particular catalyst designed by AECL which has extraordinary resistance to fouling from water and water vapour and a large thermodynamic range of operation. The catalysts were developed, originally, for the purpose of heavy water manufacturing by way of a catalytic exchange process. Application of these catalyst materials in recombiners for containment applications began in the late 1980's. The first application was a passive recombiner, qualified for use in control of radiolytic hydrogen in the headspace of a pool-type experimental reactor of AECL design in 1988. Another application was a forced convection recombiner, for use as a 'hydrogen scrubber' in ventilation systems in reactor containments. The passive, or natural convection recombiner concept has continued development to commercial stage for application in power reactor containments. This paper describes the AECL recombiners and results from tests of full-scale prototype recombiners in the Containment Test Facility. Results show mat catalytic recombiners can enable the passive removal of hydrogen at rates approaching anticipated rates of release and recombiner performance is unaffected by foreseeable post-accident containment conditions.