Physicochemical Aspects of Reactor Graphite Incineration

The incineration of reactor graphite in an air stream is studied. Thermogravimetric analysis showed that in air disperse graphite starts to burn at 843 K. The burn rate reaches a maximum at 1023 K and remains constant above this temperature. The logarithm of the burn rate was found to be a linear function of the reciprocal of the temperature: logv = –(2.75 ± 0.35)·10 4 /T. It was found that the burn rate at 1173 K per unit surface area for graphite samples with initial surface area from 600 to 1800 mm 2 is almost the same for all samples and equals (0.74 ± 0.15)·10 –3 kg/(m 2 ·sec).