In 1999 Babcock Noell was awarded the contract for the vitrification equipment (VEK) for lot 3 “Mechanical equipment“ which is located on the premises of the Karlsruhe reprocessing plant .

The project with a contract volume of approx. Euro 18.4 million was successfully completed during the fiscal year of 2005.

The vitrification equipment integrates the highly radioactive liquid waste concentrate produced at the Karlsruhe reprocessing plant in storable and safely transportable glass coquilles.

The waste concentrate is taken out of the existing storage containers and with the addition of borosilicate and glass frits it is processed to glass coquilles in a melting furnace. These coquilles are kept in special transport and storage containers. They are intermediately stored until they are transferred to final storage.

The order included the planning, manufac ture, installation and commissioning of the equipment. Babcock Noell supplied the mechanical equipment for the hot cells such as eg. radiation protection windows, shielding doors and gates, manipulators and various transport equipment.

The experience gained in this project adds to the 40 years of know-how of Babcock Noell in the field of nuclear engineering. Based on this important reference project BNN GmbH hopes for further orders in future, especially in the area of construction and deconstruc tion of nuclear power stations.