Immobilization of Cesium Traps from the BN-350 Fast Reactor (Aktau, Kazakhstan)

During BN-350 reactor operations and also during the initial stages of decommissioning, cesium traps were used to decontaminate the reactor’s primary sodium coolant. Two different types of carbon-based trap were used – the MAVR series, low ash granulated graphite adsorber (LAG) contained in a carrier designed to be inserted into the reactor core during shutdown; and a series of ex-reactor trap accumulators(TAs) which used reticulated vitreous carbon (RVC) to reduce Cs-137 levels in the sodium after final reactor shutdown. In total four MAVRs and seven TAs were used at BN-350 to remove an estimated cumulative 755 TBq of cesium. The traps, which also contain residual sodium, need to be immobilized in an appropriate way to allow them to be consigned as waste packages for long term storage and, ultimately, disposal. The present paper reports on the current status of the implementation phase, with particular reference to the work done to date on the trap accumulators, which have the most similarity with the cesium traps used at other reactors