Biological Treatment for Low-Activity Nuclear Wastewaters

Safety problems loom so large for the nuclear industry that provision must always be made in treatment of liquid wastes for their recycling to the production process. In this regard, a wastewater treatment consisting mainly of ammonia stripping, biological denitrification and chemical precipitation, looks very promising.

With reference to the biological stage, this paper sets out the results of bench-scale tests performed to evaluate dimensioning parameters for the denitrification process.

The tetrahydrofurfury1 alcohol, the major organic compound in the wastewater, was used as electron-donor substance. The procedure adopted for full-scale plant design and the preliminary results obtained using it, are also presented.