STUDIES REGARDING BEHAVIOUR OF SINTERED MATERIALS ON ISOTOPES SEPARATION – 1. CRYOGENIC EXPERIMENTAL PLANT

FLOAREA POP, CORNELIA CROITORU, IOAN STEFANESCU, CONSTANTIN CIORTEA, SEBASTIAN BRAD, GHEORGHE TITESCU, VASILE STANCIU, MIHAI CULCER, MARIANA ILIESCU

National R&D Institute for Cryogenics and Isotopes Technologies ICIT Ramnicu Valcea,
Uzinei no.4 Street, mail code 240050, PO 4, POB 10, Rm. Valcea, Romania,
e-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , http://www.icsi.ro

 ABSTRACT 
 
On isotopic separation plants from Romania, experimental or industrial plants, the distillation columns were equipped with structured packing. This packing introduces a low pressure drop comparative than random packing. Structured packing was manufactured from phosphorous bronze for water distillation and stainless steel for hydrogen distillation (cryogenic distillation). Isotopes separation by distillation is more difficult than other mixtures, because its separation factor is very small. For this reason isotopes separations require great amounts of packing. The height of transfer unit, that is efficiency measure of the liquid-vapour contact element, depends on the specific surface of packing. Sintered materials offer higher contact surface than unsintered materials. The paper presents cryogenic laboratory plant, built in our institute for studies regarding behaviour and performance of sintered materials on isotopic separations.
Keywords: isotope, cryogenic distillation, sintered material