Radionuclides Three Mile Island 2 reactor

The past safety record of nuclear reactors, other than the Soviet Chernobyl-type RBMK reactors, is excellent Excluding RBMK reactors, there had been about 9000 reactor-years of operation in the world by the end of 1999, including about 2450 in the United States.1 In this time there was only one accident involving damage to the reactor core, the 1979 Three Mile Island accident, and even at TMI there was very little release of radionuclides to the outside environment. 

A particular aspect of water treatment is the rehabilitation of accidentally contaminated soils by radionuclides. This is well illustrated by the works carried out after the Cernobyl catastrophe. The incorporation of clinoptilolite into contaminated soils reduced the transport of heavy metals and radionuclides from soils into ground water and biomass (7). Union Carbide s IONSIV EE-95 (CHA) and A-51 zeolites (LTA) with excellent Cs+/Na+ and Sr2+/Na+ selectivities, respectively, have also been employed for decontamination of high activity level water in the reactor containment building from Cs+ and Sr2+ after the accident at Three Miles Island (5). The radioisotope loaded zeolites were then transformed into glasses for ultimate disposal. 

Only two earlier reactor accidents caused significant releases or radionuclides the one at Windscale (United Kingdom) in October 1957 and the other at Three Mile Island (United States) in March 1979 (UNSCEAR-1982). While it is very difficult to estimate the fraction of the Windscale radionuclide core inventory that was released to the atmosphere, it has been estimated that the accident released twice the amount of noble gases that was released at Chernobyl, but 2,000 times less and Cs (DOE-1987). The Three Mile Island accident released approximately 2% as much noble gases and 0.00002% as much l as the Chernobyl accident. 

This dociunent describes a representative radionuclide source term to the containments of reactors for use in the traditional design basis accident analysis. The source term is based on the more mechanistic studies of radionuclide behaviour conducted since the accident at Three Mile Island. Although the source is representative of the magnitude and timing of severe accident source terms, it is not intended to represent any specific severe accident sequence nor is it intended to be a boimding source term. 

Without either spray droplets or flooded pathways, substantial fractions of radionuclides released from the degrading reactor fuel can be retained within the reactor coolant system. Results of some example calculation for radionuclide retention in the reactor coolant systems for various types of accidents are shown in Table III-l. The natural retention of radionuclide vapors oeeurs because the vapors either condense on surfaces or react with these surfaces. Depending on the surface temperature and the duration of its exposure to high temperature steam, the surface material is either ehromium oxide (Cr203) or iron oxide (Fe304 y). Both of these materials are expected to be reactive toward cesium-bearing vapours and strontium or barium vapors. Stainless steel lead screws above the core at Three Mile Island were found to have captured cesium by reaction with silica impurities in the steel. Metallic nickel inclusions in the oxide films on surfaces within the reactor coolant system are reactive toward tellurium whether it is in the metallic state or present as TeO or SnTe. 

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