Process Design of Heat Pump Evaporation Technology for Liquid Radioactive Waste Treatment

The Site Radwaste Treatment Facility (SRTF) was to treat the liquid radioactive waste with high concentration of electrolytes in CAP1400 plant. Unlike the forced-circulation or natural-circulation evaporator, the waste was purified by evaporation process using heat pump principle in SRTF. This process combined the benefits of heat pump technology and the separation function of evaporation. This paper gave a brief description of the complete evaporation process. The main equipments of the process included pre-heater, evaporator, demister, steam compressor, and distillate tank. The whole system and each unit operation in the process were elaborately simulated based on energy balance. The results can be further used for equipments selection and design. Through the whole discussion of the heat pump evaporation process, it showed the heat pump evaporation process has remarkable energy efficiency and great advantages in equipment layout compared to traditional evaporation treatment for liquid radioactive waste.