Recovery of Fission Product Noble Gases

An advantage of using an absorption-stripping system over charcoal adsorption is that the noble gas can be removed almost completely in a coatinuous operation at ambieat temperatures. A difficulty with the Amsco absorption- stripping method is that relatively large volumes of organic have to be handled when operating at atmospheric pressure. The absorption-stripping system could be advantageously used where an inexpensive head end'' or primary bulk separation of gaseous activity is required, either for storage until safe disposal to the atmosphere is allowable, or for further processing for complete enrichment or purification of xenon and krypton. Other possibilities include the processing of homogeneous reactor purge gas streams, where a suitable carrier gas, such as helium, can be chosen to allow an increased single-stage concentration factor. This could also be used in processing gas streams from pyrometallurgical processing plants, where there is freedom in the choice of a vehicle gas in purging the gaseous fission products.