Mo. Two successful tests took place at the Callaway Nuclear Power Plant earlier this year, and companies including Consolidated Edison in New York are talking to the researchers about projects at their plants. There is a strong demand in the United States and overseas for a process to clean nuclear fuel and heat transfer tubes, Professor Varrin said. After time, the fuel rods that contain uranium and tubes carrying energy from the reactor to a turbine build up a highly radioactive waste product. These deposits lessen efficiency at plants and pose a safety hazard, he said. In the method, fuel bundles and transfer tubes are dipped in water and a sonic transducer bombards them with high-frequency sound.
Deposits are then strained and stored.
The two spent months designing transducers that can withstand prolonged exposure to radiation. The work wouldn't be possible without Dominion's donation of equipment to CUA, Professor Barkatt noted. The engineering firm has donated the prototype equipment to clean nuclear fuel as well as a transparent high-pressure autoclave also the only one of its kind in the United States that allows the researchers to study chemical reactions at temperatures as high as 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Professors Varrin and Barkatt work with Marta Gmurczyk, associate research professor, who manages the laboratory and helps direct a group that includes a graduate student, seven undergraduates from the schools of arts and sciences and engineering, a senior analytical chemist and several technicians. The partnership between Catholic University and Dominion Engineering serves a broad range of clients, from utility companies in the United States and abroad to the U.S. Department of Energy and the Electric Power Research Institute.