Decommissioning of uranium pilot plants at IPEN-CNEN/SP: facilities dismantling, decontamination and reuse as new laboratories for strategic programs

Abstract

From beginning of 90’s, the Brazilian nuclear policy has been changed radically. This determined the interruption of most R&D fuel cycle activities and the facilities shutdown at Nuclear and Energetic Research Institute (IPEN). The existence of those facilities also implicated in the need of constant surveillance, representing additional obligations, costs and problems. The reasons to promote the dismantling of the IPEN’s Nuclear Fuel Cycle Pilot Plants elapsed mainly from the need of physical space for new activities, since the R&D in the nuclear fuel cycle area were interrupted. In the last decade, IPEN has changed its “nuclear profile” to a “comprehensive and multidisciplinary profile”. With the end of most nuclear fuel cycle activities, the former facilities were distributed in four different centers. Each center has adopted a different strategy and priority to face the D&D problem. The available resources depend on the specific program in each area’s development (resources available from other sources, not only from Brazilian National Nuclear Energy Commission (CNEN). One of those new activities is the IPEN’s Environmental Program. This paper describes the procedures, problems faced and results related to the reintegration of the former pilot plant areas as new laboratories of the Chemical and Environmental Technology CenterCQMA of the IPEN.