System Achieving Cesium Removal Goal of Approximately 99.9%
IRVINE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Kurion, Inc., an innovator in nuclear waste management, announced that its Ion Specific Media System has been achieving its cesium removal goal of approximately 99.9% at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant since startup on July 17th. As the last contractor to join the internationally acclaimed members of the Water Treatment Facilities System by several weeks Kurion worked around-the-clock seven days-a-week to design and build the system to meet the same delivery as the other team members. The company is recommending system performance enhancements to increase activity removal to 99.99% or better. Kurion is delivering to TEPCO a reliable, proven, and defensible technology roadmap to success.
Kurion Vice President and Project Manager in Japan, Dr. Gaëtan Bonhomme, said that "After a five week design/fabricate/delivery cycle with frequent and significant specification changes right up to shipment, the system was assembled at Fukushima in nine days followed by only one day of cold commissioning and three days of warm commissioning before hot startup with actual waste water. The highly compressed delivery and startup durations were driven by the urgent desire to avoid further problems due to continual aftershocks and the summer rainy season. Because of the short start-up schedule normal installation adjustments and fixes were exacerbated with some having to be resolved under warm commissioning, or in the case of a mislabeled valve, during the actual waste operations. Kurion and TEPCO worked together around the clock to overcome these issues as an integrated team with excellent cooperation."
Kurion Vice President of Engineering and Fukushima Project Director, Dr. Richard Keenan, added that "Anticipating the challenge to quality assurance posed by the highly compressed delivery and commissioning times, Kurion designed the system with redundancies for pumps, valves, and media capacity. For example, TEPCO has the option of not utilizing any of the Kurion system pumps if an increase to the upstream buffer tank pump discharge pressure is made; converting the system to a highly reliable electrically passive system. This improvement will be evaluated along with media and system life extension, return to improved pre-filtration media, installation of shielding on system feed piping to eliminate off-design flushing cycles and reduce dose for safe operator entry during vessel change-out, and other optimizations. Despite the challenging 8-week duration from project award to system startup, when operated in its design configuration the system removes approximately 99.999% of the cesium, the principal source of radioactivity, a performance that is expected to improve as salinity decreases."
Kurion Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Dr. Mark Denton, summarized the Kurion strategy as "delivering improvements to technologies successfully tested and demonstrated by the U.S. Department of Energy (U.S. DOE) during cleanup of contaminated water at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant Unit No. 2 (TMI): i) isotope extraction - using special inorganic media with very high isotope removal capacity (even in seawater conditions), high radiation resistance, and ability to be vitrified with little or no off-gassing and ii) isotope stabilization - by vitrification of the depleted media to volume reduce and immobilize the radionuclides in a leach resistance glass matrix waste form normally reserved for high level waste." Dr. Denton confirmed that "Kurion is delivering the first phase of these technologies at Fukushima through its unique and exclusive Ion Specific Media using the same substrate (base material) as the media used at TMI. For the second phase the Kurion Modular Vitrification System (MVS®) can provide a uniquely portable and cost effective non-intrusive induction-based in-container solution that dramatically improves on the vitrification concept used by the U.S. DOE on depleted TMI media. Vitrification of the Ion Specific Media by our MVS® confirms remarkably high waste loading and retention of volatile isotopes (e.g. cesium) in the glass at levels beyond what is possible with other systems."
President and CEO John Raymont said that "Kurion would like to thank the Tokyo Electric Power Company for the honor of allowing us to support its historic response to protect the Japanese public due to the damage to Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant created by the Great East Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami. The Fukushima Water Treatment Facilities System is an unprecedented project defined by the challenge of putting together, in short order, an external reactor water cooling system to process in only one year roughly 150 times the volume of water processed at TMI. This was successfully accomplished by the TEPCO-lead Water Treatment Facilities System team; a remarkable example of getting the job done despite tremendous time pressure."
ABOUT KURION
Kurion provides innovative, easily deployable technologies to accelerate project performance and compliance and substantially reduce customer radioactive waste management life-cycle costs. Founded in 2008, Kurion is backed by leading energy investors Lux Capital Management and Firelake Capital Management. Headquartered in Irvine, CA, Kurion operates a R&D facility in Oak Ridge, TN and a test facility in Rolla, MO. For more information, please visit www.kurion.com.
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Contacts
Kurion, Inc.
Gaetan Bonhomme, +1 949-398-6350
Fax: +1 949-682-7028
info@kurion.com
www.kurion.com
View of Kurion Ion Specific Media System for removing cesium. Image shows the six processing skids and central piping gallery. (Photo: Business Wire)