The NF-1 test, the last test of Project Rover, actually included an exhaust scrubber to minimize the amount of effluent released in the test. Because this test was looking at different types of fuel elements than had been looked at in most previous tests, there was some concern that erosion would be an issue with these fuel elements more than others.
The hydrogen exhaust, after passing the instrumentation that would provide similar data to the Elephant Gun used in earlier tests, would be cooled with a spray of water, which then flashed to steam. This water was initially used to moderate the reactor itself, and then part of it was siphoned off into a wastewater holding tank while the rest was used for this exhaust cooling injection system. After this, the steam/H2 mixture had a temperature of about 1100 R.
After leaving the water injector system, the coolant went through radial outflow filter that was about 3 ft long, containing two wire mesh screens, the first with 0.078 inch square openings, the second one with 0.095 inch square openings.
Once it had passed through the screens, a steam generator was used to further cool the effluent, and to pull some of the H2O out of the exhaust stream. Once past this steam generator, the first separator drew the now-condensed water out of the effluent stream. Part of the radioactive component of the exhaust is at this point dissolved in the water. The water was drawn off to maintain an appropriate liquid level, and was moved into the wastewater disposal tank for filtering. A further round of exhaust cooling followed, using a water heat exchanger to cool the remaining effluent enough to condense out the rest of the water. The water used in this heat exchanger would be used by the steam generator that was used earlier in the effluent stream as its’ cool water intake, and would be discharged into the wastewater holding tank, but would not come in direct contact with the effluent stream. Once past the heat exchanger, the now much cooler H2/H2O mixture would go through a second separator identical in design to the first. At this point, most of the radioactive contaminant that could be dissolved in water had been, and the discharge from this unit was at this point pretty much completely dry.
A counterflow, U-tube type heat exchanger was then used to cool the effluent even more, and then a third separator – identical to the first two – was used to capture any last amounts of water still present in the effluent stream. During normal operation, though, basically no water would collect in this separator. The gas would then be passed through a silica gel sorption bed to further dry it. A back flow of gaseous nitrogen would be used to dry this bed for reuse. The gas, at this point completely dried, was then passed through another heat exchanger almost identical to the one that preceded the silica gel bed.
After passing through a throttle valve (used to maintain back-pressure in the reactor), the gas was then passed through an activated charcoal filter trap, 60 inches long and 60 inches in diameter, to capture the rest of the radioactive effluent left in the hydrogen stream after being mixed with LH2 to further cool the gas to 250-350 R. Finally, the now-cleaned H2 is burned to prevent a buildup of H2 gas in the area- a major explosion hazard. This filter system was constantly adjusted after each power test, because pressure problems kept on cropping up for a number of reasons, from too much resistance to thermal disequilibrium.
So how well did this system do at scrubbing the effluent? Two of the biggest concerns were the capture of radiokrypton and radioxenon, both mildly radioactive noble gasses. The activated charcoal bed was primarily tasked with scrubbing these gasses out of the exhaust stream. Since xenon is far more easily captured than krypton in activated charcoal, the focus was on ensuring the krypton would be scrubbed out of the gas stream, since this meant that all the xenon would be captured as well. Because the Kr could be pushed through the charcoal bed by the flow of the H2, a number of traps were placed through the charcoal bed to measure gamma activity at various points. Furthermore, the effluent was sampled before being flared off, to get a final measurement of how much krypton was released by the trap itself.
Looking at the sampling of the exhaust plume, as well as the ground test stations, the highest dose rat was 1 mCi/hr, far lower than the other NTR tests. Radioisotope concentrations were also far lower than the other tests. However, some radiation was still released from the reactor, and the complications of ensuring that this doesn’t occur (effectively no release is allowed under current testing regimes) due to material, chemical, and gas-dynamic challenges makes this a very challenging, and costly, proposition to adapt to a full-flow NTR test.
Sources
Nuclear Furnace 1 Test Report; LA-5189-MS, by W.L. Kirk, 1973
https://ntrl.ntis.gov/NTRL/dashboard/searchResults/titleDetail/LA5189MS.xhtml
DOE Fact Sheet, Appendix 2
https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc619748/m2/1/high_res_d/101088.pdf