Kurion to Treat Tank Water at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant
Nuclear and hazardous waste management company Kurion announced today it has been awarded a contract by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) to deliver at-tank mobile system to remove strontium from tank water at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.
Kurion says it has already delivered the first set of equipment to the plant’s staging area for inspection, and plans to ship the balance of equipment in the coming weeks. Kurion expects that the system will be operational this summer.
“Kurion has been honored to work alongside TEPCO in the initial 2011 recovery and since to address cesium, which presented the greatest immediate threat to human safety and the environment,” said John Raymont, Kurion founder and president.
“Today, strontium is the greatest emitter of radiation impacting site dose-rates. So, reducing strontium in tank water stored on-site will significantly improve worker safety and reduces the risk to the surrounding environment.”
Under the contract, the Kurion Mobile Processing System, or KMPS, will be moved around the site and placed beside tank groups. The system is designed to help TEPCO reduce strontium (Sr) from the hundreds of tanks on-site that contain approximately 400,000 metric tons of water, a volume that is expanding at 400 tons per day.
It employs a similar modular plug-and-process design approach as has been used since 2011 in the Kurion cesium adsorption system, and supplemented with additional filtration capabilities.
For the KMPS, Kurion uses a different proprietary, inorganic and easily vitrified ion-exchange media to separate strontium from competing, lower-risk contaminants also present in the water.
Founded in 2008, Kurion is backed by leading energy investors Lux Capital, Firelake Capital Management and Acadia Woods Partners. The company is headquartered in Irvine, Calif., and has facilities in Richland, Wash., Houston, Texas, Loveland, Colo., and Tokyo, Japan.
