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use of nitrogen for tritium separation plant security
Sorin Gherghinescu*
National Research and Development Institute for Cryogenics and Isotopic Technologies - ICIT Rm. Valcea, code 240050 - Rm. Valcea, Uzinei 4, CP7 Riureni, Valcea, Romania, phone:0040 250 736979, fax:0040 250 732746
ABSTRACT
The oxygen replacement from air with inert gases is a practice often used in fire and explosion fighting. Inert atmospheres created by adding an inert gas in order to dilute the oxygen concentration below the minimum flammability limit are used for safe handling of flammable liquids and dust-loaded or explosive media. Moreover, the gases are used in the extinguishers. The main advantage of using gases in comparison with water is that are not damages caused by the extinguishment of fire environment. Initially, the main gas used in fire extinguishment was carbon dioxide, but in the modern installation, the use of inert gases like nitrogen, decrease the size of damages avoiding the chemical reaction. Several processes can be widely used in industry for treating residual gases with liquid nitrogen. These technologies allow the purification of resulting gases according to the legal provisions, with a rate of solvent recovery up to 99%. The advantages of using cryogenic purification of residual gases are the low temperatures, therefore low potential hazards, lack of hazardous waste and residual waters. In most cases the resulting nitrogen is used for creating inert atmosphere. Paper proposes several schemes to use nitrogen for security in operation of the tritium separation plant.
KEYWORDS: Inert atmospheres, minimum flammability limit, tritium separation plant. *Corresponding author: e-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it |