Nuclear power plants in Korea stores approximately 3,800 drums of paraffin solidification products. Due to the lack of homogeneity, these solidification products are not allowed to be disposed of. There is therefore a need for the separation of paraffin from the solidification products. This work developed an equipment for a selective separation of paraffin from the solidification product using the vacuum evaporation and condensational recovery method in a closed system. The equipment mainly consists of a vacuum evaporator and a condensational deposition recovery chamber. Nonisothermal vacuum TGAs, kinetic analyses and kinetic predictions were conducted to set appropriate operation conditions. Its basic operability under the established conditions was first confirmed using pure paraffin solid. Simulated paraffin solidification product fixing dried boric acid waste including nonradioactive Co and Cs were then fabricated and tested for the capability of selective separation of paraffin from the simulated waste. Paraffin was selectively separated without entertainment of Co and Cs. It was confirmed that the developed equipment could separate and recover paraffin in the form of nonradioactive waste.

For the decommissioning or continuous long-term power generation of nuclear power plants, it is necessary to transfer the spent nuclear fuel from the wet storage pool to the dry storage. Spent nuclear fuel should go through the drying process, which is the first step of dry storage. The most important part in the drying process is the removal of the residual water. The spent fuel might be stored in a dry storage system for a long time. The integrity of internal components and spent fuel cladding should be maintained during the storage period. If residual water is present, problems such as aging of metal materials, oxidation of cladding, and the hydride-reorientation could occur. The presence or absence of residual water after vacuum drying is evaluated by pressure. If there is residual water in the vacuum drying process, it evaporates easily at low pressure to form water vapor pressure and the internal pressure rises. In the recent EPRI High burn up demonstration test, the gas inside the canister that satisfied the dryness criteria was extracted and analyzed. It showed that the water content was higher than the expected value. We are conducting verification studies on the pressure evaluation method, which is an indirect evaluation method of vacuum drying. The vacuum drying test was performed on small specimens at Sandia National Laboratory, and quantitative residual water evaluation was also performed. The report did not mention a detailed method for the assessment of residual water. Based on the test results of SNL, direct residual water evaluation was performed using energy balance. If the dryness criteria were satisfied, the quantitative amount of residual water was also evaluated. As a result, almost the same result as the evaluation result of SNL was derived, and it was confirmed that most of the water was removed when the dryness criteria was satisfied.

In this study, organic electroluminescent devices(OELD) with a structure of a glass substrate/ITO/TPD/Tb(ACAC)3(Phen-Cl)/Alq3/Al was fabricated by vacuum evaporation method, where Tb complex was known to have green light emitting property. Electroluminescent(EL) and I-V characteristics of this structure were investigated. This triple-layer structure shows the green EL spectrum at the wavelwngth of 546nm, which is almost the same as the PL spectrum of Pb(ACAC)3(PhenCl). It was found in current-voltage(I-V) characteristics of the devices that the operating voltage was about 12V.

The effect of mixed oil on the drying characteristics of sewage sludge in oil vacuum evaporation systems was studied. The experimental results showed that the drying rate with cooking oil was faster than that with refined oil due to the difference of thermal conductivity and composition of mixed oil. However, the heating value of all dried sludge was enhanced and the moisture content was below 1% due to penetration of oil into the microbial cells in sludge during the drying procedure. TGA analysis of sludge mixed with the refined oil, which had a higher volatility, showed the slope of the primary falling period was sharply declined. The result of DTA analysis also showed that the first peak was higher than the second peak and corresponded with the phenomena observed in the TGA analysis. In the DTA analysis, the temperature of the primary peak and the secondary peak of dried sludge were comparatively lower than those of raw sludge. Therefore, mixed oil could decrease the self-ignition temperature in an oil-sludge mixing system. In case of waste cooking oil, the TGA and DTA results showed similar results to those of raw sludge, but the DTA results showed that the secondary peaks of dried sludge were narrower and sharper than those of raw sludge. Overall, mixing oil could be a principal factor in controlling the drying efficiency and thermal properties of sludge-derived fuel in oil vacuum evaporation systems.

The drying and fuel technologies for sewage sludge have been developed due to the prohibition of ocean dumping and new renewable portfolio standard. This study was performed to enhance the quality of sludge derived fuel and compare drying characteristics for thickened and digested sewage sludge at different temperature, pressure and mixing oil conditions in oil vacuum evaporation system. In addition to investigate calorific value and characteristic analysis of dried sludge. The thickened and digested sludge used in this study were taken from municipal sewage treatment plant and coagulated using polymer (C-310P) in laboratory. The drying rate was increased with temperature and degree of vacuum and it was 25 mL/kg-sludge·min at 110oC and –450 mmHg. The moisture content of dried sludge products showed very low within 1% in the range of 0.4 ~ 0.8%. The evaporation rate of thickened sludge was lower than digested sludge and the constant evaporation period was also shorter. Compared the effect of waste cooking oil and refined waste petroleum oil on drying efficiency, the waste cooking oil showed more effective than refined oil in evaporation rate and drying time. The carbon and hydrogen contents of dried sludge with refined oil were higher than waste cooking oil. The low heating value of thickened dried sludge was higher than digested dried sludge about 400 kcal/kg and both of dried sludge showed high calorific value more than 4,000 kcal/kg.