Team:Lyon-INSA-ENS/Project/Industrialization

Industrialization

During the project development we organized a lot of meetings with nuclear industry actors.

To know more about the operation of nuclear power plants we visited the nuclear power plant of Tricastin.

We also visited the Nuclear center for processing and conditioning low-level radioactive waste(CENTRACO)to learn more about the constraints of nuclear waste processing

Thanks to our partner Assystem we met nuclear experts who provided us additional and accurate informations on the issues of nuclear industry and assessed feasability of the project

Why a Cobalt Biofilter in nuclear power plants ?

1- It is known that a pulse of radioactive Cobalt emission occurs in the primary circuit of water, during the maintenance of nuclear power plants when they open the reactor core. This pulse damages the ion exchange resin used to filter the water and reduce its radioactive level.

2- Major preocupation of nuclear industry is the reduction of waste volume and a previous modelization estimated that the modified the "Cobalt Buster" strain is very efficient :

4 kg of modified bacteria = 8000 kg of ion exchange resins

3- Drastic reduction of the costs of waste processing and conditioning is also a major issue for nuclear industry. Biofilter production is less expensive and the biofilter may prevent damage caused to the resins. It could significantly reduce costs of rehabilitation of primary circuit wastewater

That is why we first thought using the "Cobalt Buster" biofilter upstream the ion exchange resin during the rehabilitation of primary circuit effluents in nuclear power plants.

Mettre ici la video de Margaux sur le prototype de biofiltre

Why not in the primary circuit ? (Experts advice)