Fundamental issues of the effective decontamination of the steam generators of Paks NPP</p> </p>

Summary During the period of 1993-2001 chemical decontaminations of 24 SGs in the units 1-3 of the Paks NPP were carried out by a non-regenerative version of AP-CITROX technology, even in two or three consecutive cycles. A comprehensive investigation of the above decontamination method have revealed that the fundamental issues of analytical chemistry and corrosion science were not taken into consideration during the elaboration of AP-CITROX procedure. Therefore, the non-regenerative version of the technology utilized at Paks NPP can be considered to be not an adequate method for the chemical decontamination of any reactor equipments having large steel surfaces (e.g., SGs). As a consequence of the lack of the appropriate decontamination method, initiation of a R&D project focused on the elaboration of the required technology should not be postponed. In this paper, we present a brief overview on the fundamental issues of the technology development. Selected findings obtained in our laboratory on the field of the improvement of the AP-CITROX technology are also reviewed in order to demonstrate the crucial role of some selection criteria.</p> </p>