Grant: Alliance Grants

The overarching goal of this project is to develop a safe, eco-friendly and cost-effective laser decontamination technology that can reduce the volume of small module reactor (SMR) metallic waste by more than a thousandfold. For most metallic wastes, contamination is limited to a very thin layer of metal-oxide deposits. Chemical processes are currently used for cleaning reactor metals but generate secondary liquid wastes that may require additional decontamination steps. This project will investigate metal-oxide removal by laser spallation and develop a collection system appropriate for the spalled oxide particles. The technology must withstand harsh radiation environments, and be effective over a wide range of compositions, morphologies and thicknesses of oxides surface deposits that will likely form on SMR heat-transport metals. Most importantly, the spalled oxide particles must be safely trapped and collected while minimizing dispersion to the environment and generation of secondary waste. Decontamination technology will be investigated initially using inactive surrogate metallic waste, followed by testing using active surrogate metallic waste in preparation for testing using real metallic waste samples from the refurbishment/decommissioning projects.