#desalinating

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TEPCO is going to implement a new desalinating system to prevent the plumbing and the spent fuel pool surfaces from corroding at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

All the spent fuel pools of the No1~No4 reactors at Fukushima Daiichi plant have switched to the circulating water cooling systems, and the water temperatures are getting stabilized. Salt content (from the emergency seawater injection to cool the pools right after the accident in March) in the pools, however, is still high enough to corrode the inside of plumbing of the cooling systems as well as the surfaces of the pools. Thus, TEPCO decided to desalinate the pool water.

Specifically, the system uses specially designed membranes and electricity to filter the salt from the water on the flatbeds of 5 trucks. They will begin desalinating the No4 reactor's pool, which contains the largest amount of spent fuel as early as this coming weekend. They aim to remove 96% of salt in 2 months. They will subsequently set up the systems for the No2 & No3 reactors.

TEPCO has also implemented the system that uses Zeolite to remove radioactive materials from the circulating water of the No2~No4 reactors' pools.

By adding the desalinating measure to the pools, they believe everything will be stable for a long time until they extract the fuels, since desalination is already a part of the water purification systems for all the reactors.