[en] Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors have a system devoted to the purification and upgrading of the collected heavy water leaks. The purification train is fed with different degradation ratios (D₂O/H₂O) activities and impurities. The water is distilled in a packed bed column filled with a mesh type packing. With the purpose of minimizing the column stack corrosion, the water is pretreated in a train consisting on an activated charcoal bed-strong cationic-anionic resin and a final polishing mixed bed resin. Traces of oils are retained by the charcoal bed but some compounds extracted by the aqueous phase are suspected to be responsible for the resins fouling or precursors of potentially aggressive agents inside the distillation column. In the present work, the identification, evaluation of alternatives for the retention like dead end and cross flow micro filtration, adsorption and ion exchange were tested and the results compared to the original products present in the water upgrading purification train. (author)

[en] In particular PHWRs have a system devoted to the purification and upgrading of the collected heavy water leaks. The purification train is fed with different degradation ratios (D₂O/H₂O), activities and impurities. The water is distilled in a packed bed column filled with a mesh type packing. The mesh wire is made of a bronze substrate covered by copper oxides whose current composition has been determined by Moessbauer spectroscopy. With the purpose of minimizing the column stack corrosion, the water is pre-treated in a train consisting of an activated charcoal bed-strong cationic-anionic resin and a final polishing mixed bed resin. Ionic chemicals like acetic acid (whose provenance is suspected to come from the air treatment/D₂O recovery system where the regeneration is performed at high temperature) are detected by the conductivity and ion chromatography when they concentrate at the column bottom. Traces of oils are retained by the charcoal bed but some compounds extracted by the aqueous phase are suspected to be responsible for the resins fouling or precursors of potentially aggressive agents inside the distillation column. Those species have been detected and identified by gaseous chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). In the present work, the identification, evaluation of alternatives for the retention and results compared to the original products present in the water upgrading purification train have been summarized. (authors)