Radioactive Spent Resins Conditioning by the Hot Super-compaction Process at Tihange Npp

At Tihange NPP, spent ion-exchange resins were conditioned by embedding in a polymermatrix with a mobile processing installation. For safety and cost reasons, Electrabeldecided to investigate by which process the former one should be replaced. After a thorough technical economical analysis of the available proven processes, TractebelEngineering selected the Resin Hot Compaction Process to be installed at Tihange NPP. The Resin Hot Compaction Process is used to make water free dense homogeneous organicblocks from a wide range of particulate waste. In this process, spent resins are firstdewatered and dried to remove the inner structural water content. After drying, the resinsare placed into special metal drums, which are automatically provided with a lid andimmediately transferred to a high force compactor. After high force compaction, the pelletsare transferred to a measuring unit, where the dose rate, height and weight areautomatically measured and recorded.