Advanced Foam Decontamination Agent for Enhanced Reactor Pool Purification in Nuclear Power Plants: Development, Evaluation, and Operational Insights

During the comprehensive maintenance of nuclear power plants, the purification of the reactor pool is a critical task. Integrating foam decontamination with traditional high-pressure water washing can effectively shorten decontamination time and reduce radiation exposure to maintenance personnel. This study developed a novel foam decontamination agent through experimentation, assessing the effects of each component in the decontaminant on the foaming and liquid-carrying capabilities of the foam solution. Immersion corrosion tests confirmed that this foam decontaminant does not corrode the reactor pool material (022Cr23Ni5Mo3N). Additionally, a laboratory evaluation method for the performance of foam decontaminants was established, and by comparing the foaming and decontaminating performance between a commercial foam decontaminant (NETAMIX-F) and the developed foam decontaminant, it revealed that the developed decontaminant can effectively prevent the re-deposition of pollutants. Furthermore, the decontaminant developed in this work has superior liquidcarrying capacity than the commercial product, achieving a 98.6% removal rate of Fe 3 O 4 after the first wash, with a re-deposition removal rate of 99.4%. This work identified a foam decontamination system suitable for nuclear power stations, providing operational guidelines and serving as a reference for future reactor pool decontaminations.