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The radioactive liquid waste treatment facility (RLWTF) at Los Alamos National Laboratory(LANL) located in Los Alamos, New Mexico treats radioactive wastewaters originating in laboratoriesand from equipment in radiological facilities, chiefly cooling tower and chiller system blowdowns, sump pump downs, and seal water systems.One of the main treatment processes at the RLWTF is a tubular ultrafilter (TUF). There is noredundancy to this particular process at the RLWTF. If the TUF were to become nonoperationalboth the quantity of water treated and the quality of the RLWTF effluent would bedramatically reduced. In the effort to provide backup capability for this critical unit operation,funds were allocated to obtain and "pilot" test other microfiltration and ultrafiltrationtechnologies in competition with the TUF on actual radioactive liquid waste. If a particulartechnology proved to be superior to the TUF in permeate quality and/or in operationalconsiderations then a full-scale unit employing that technology would be purchased.This paper documents these efforts, which took place at LANL's RLWTF during May and June2002, to determine the optimal membrane filtration technology to give the RLWTF redundantfiltration capability for the TUF. Four "pilot" membrane filtration technologies were tested:tubular microfiltration;hollow-fiber microfiltration;vacuum driven hollow-fiber ultrafiltration; and,pressure driven hollow-fiber ultrafiltration;As a result of this "pilot" testing effort, RLWTF management decided to attain the redundancyof a second filtration unit not by installing a second unit but rather by having on-hand all criticalspare parts for the TUF. A complete rebuild of the TUF can be accomplished in threeworking days. Less major repairs can be accomplished in one working day. This decisionwas made on the basis that no "pilot" filtration technology was capable of producing permeateof as high a quality as the TUF. It is true, however, that other filtration technologies wereoperationally and mechanically less complex than the TUF. This advantage of some of the"pilot" technologies was counter balanced by the RLWTF's two and a half years of operationalexperience with the TUF which includes numerous treatment optimizing design modifications. Includes table, figures.

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Edition: Vol. - No. Published: 03/05/2003 Number of Pages: 20 File Size: 1 file , 390 KB