Bulgaria Tests Plasma Burning Facility at Kozloduy Nuclear Plant

Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--A 30 million euro ($35 million) plasma-melting facility at Bulgaria's Kozloduy nuclear power plant has been successfully tested.

The first test comes eight years after the contract was first awarded to a team comprising Iberdrola Engineering & Construction (Madrid, Spain) and Belgoprocess (Dessel, Belgium), Belgium's state-run radioactive waste management company. The autonomous nuclear waste plasma-burning facility was constructed on the site of units 3 and 4, and will be used reduce the amount of on-site low- and intermediate-level solid radioactive waste. Construction began in 2015, according to World Nuclear New.

The new facility will "significantly reduce the volume of this type of waste" by subjecting it to temperatures of up to 5,000 degrees centigrade. The high temperatures produce a liquid waste which, when cooled, vitrifies into a solid form that is up to 80 times smaller than the original waste product. This is then packed into containers and encased in concrete. In 2013, the partners successfully completed final testing on the plasma facility over a two-day period at the Europlasma Inertam facilities in Morcenx, in the south of France. Following that, the plant was transported to Kozloduy.

The recent 72-hour continuous test run on-site used simulated radioactive waste with different pours of hot liquid slag at temperatures up to 1,300 degrees centigrade. The project was co-financed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the Bulgarian government.

It has been a busy time for the Kozloduy plant and the Bulgarian nuclear sector in recent months. Kozloduy is Bulgaria's only nuclear plant and is home to two operational VVER-1000 reactors, units 5 and 6, and four shuttered VVER-440 reactors. Industrial Info reported last month that the government had thrown a lifeline to Kozloduy by granting a 10-year life extension for Unit 5 to continue operating until 2027. The licence for unit 6 will expire in 2019, but it is expected that a similar extension will be granted for that unit. For additional information, see, November 10, 2017 article--Bulgaria Extends Life of Last Nuclear Plant.

In September, there was a ground-breaking ceremony for a low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste repository on the Kozloduy site. The facility is being developed by the country's State Enterprise Radioactive Waste (SERAW), which is overseeing the decommissioning of four reactors at Kozloduy. It is being constructed by Nukem Technologies GmBH (Alzenau, Germany). For additional information, see September 8, 2017, article - Bulgaria Breaks Ground on Nuclear Waste Storage Site.

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