Comparison of Gas Membrane Separation Cascades Using Conventional Separation Cell and Two-Unit Separation Cells

抄録

The adoption of two-unit separation cells in radioactive rare gas membrane separa-tion equipment enhances the separation factor, but increases the required membrane area and compressive power. An analytical economic evaluation was undertaken to compare the conventional separation cell with the two-unit separation cells, adopting as parameters the number of cascade stages, the membrane area and the operating power requirements.
This paper describes the models used for evaluating the separation performance and the economics of cascade embodying these different concepts of separation cell taken up for study, and the results obtained for the individual concepts are mutually compared.
It proved that, in respect of the number required of cascade stages, of operating power requirements and of the annual expenditure, better performance could always be expected of the two-unit separation cells as compared with the conventional separation cell, at least in the range of parameters adopted in this study. As regards the minimum membrane area, the conventional separation cell and the series-type separation cell yielded almost the same values, with the parallel-type separation cell falling somewhat behind.