New Melter Technology Development in Tokai Vitrification Facility

Concentrated high radioactive liquid waste (HALW) containing almost FP and TRU elements is stored temporarily in Tokai Reprocessing Plant (TRP) and then transferred and vitrified in Tokai Vitrification Plant (TVF). TVF entered hot operation in 1995 about twenty years later of the start of hot operation in TRP. In TVF, total 247 canisters have been produced so far and JAEA should vitrify a large amount of HALW stored in TRP hereafter. Through about ten year operation of TVF, JAEA have experienced a failure of the first melter and got a lesson that stable operation of a melter and development of a melter with long life time were key points for high performance operation of TVF. Based on these experiences, JAEA has made a basic strategy to achieve stable TVF operation; keeping stable operation of the existing melter preventing adverse effect by noble metal accumulation and developing a new advanced melter with long lifetime preparing for future exchange as the third melter. According to the basic strategy, JAEA made a decade development plan of necessary key technologies two years ago [1] and has been continuing development. In this paper, present situation of the development is described.