Waste water concentrator and waste water disposal plant

Abstract

The present invention relates to a technique of concentrating waste water whereby the water content of the waste water is removed with a high decontamination factor, employs a porous membrane having a property allowing gas such as steam to permeate but not allowing a liquid such as water to do, as a membrane for concentrating the waste water, and adopts a method wherein the waste water is turned into a vapor flow and this vapor flow is made to contact the porous membrane so as for the waste water to be concentrated on the occasion when the waste water is to be concentrated by means of this porous membrane. By turning the waste water into the vapor flow, most of various metal ions, a surfactant, etc. existing in the waste water are separated from the vapor flow. Mist, metal ions in the mist and others contained in the vapor flow are removed by the aforesaid porous membrane from the steam while permeating the same. This enables the disposal of the waste water with a high decontamination factor, for a long duration and in a stable manner. When this technique of concentrating waste water is adapted to a plant for disposal of waste water of high electroconductivity produced from a nuclear power station, for instance, various tanks, a demineralizer, ion-exchange resin, etc. provided on the downstream of a concentrator are dispensed with, and thus the plant for disposal can be simplified to a large extent.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.