ICET’s Nuclear Containment Ventilation (NCV) division leads the nation in research to ensure that confinement systems for processing radioactive waste are effective and pose minimum risk of accidental exposure for workers at specialized waste treatment facilities across the country. HEPA filters are used at energy facilities throughout the United States, including the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Hanford site in Washington state and the Savannah River site in South Carolina, to remove hazardous, radioactive wastes from the air. Since they are the last line of defense to be sure that radioactive contamination is contained, these specialized filters must be 99.97 percent efficient and must also be able to withstand unexpected adverse conditions. ICET’s NCV group, in conjunction with filter manufacturers and U.S. DOE, tests filters across ranges of humidity, temperature, and flow rate, and against various aerosol and liquid conditions to monitor how each filter performs and makes recommendations for industry standards. While current national consensus standards also require testing for harsh conditions, our NCV site is currently the only place that can combine conditions to test simultaneously.
