Annular centrifugal extractors(ACEs) offer advantages including excellent hydraulic and mass-transfer performance, small hold-up volume, short residence time,and thus low solvent degradation, high nuclear criticality,easy start-up and shut-down, high compact structure.Therefore, ACEs have attracted increasing interest for future nuclear processing schemes, including the partitioning of high-level liquid waste(HLLW). Laboratoryscale and pilot-scale ACEs have been applied in demonstration tests of the trialkyl phosphine oxide(TRPO) process for HLLW partitioning. In this study, an industrialscale ACE(260 mm in rotor diameter) with magnetic coupling and a ‘‘hanging'' rotor structure was developed for the TRPO process. Moreover, a series of hydraulic and mass-transfer tests were carried out in the industrial-scale ACE. The maximum throughput can reach 10 m^3/h under suitable operation parameters when kerosene is used as the organic phase, and water is used as the aqueous phase. The influence of the total flowrate, the flow ratio(aqueous/organic, A/O), and the rotor speed on the liquid hold-up volume was determined. The extraction stage efficiency is higher than 98% under test parameters for extraction of Nd^(3+) and HNO_3, using 30% TRPO kerosene as theextractant from an HNO_3 solution containing Nd. All results show good performance of the industrial-scale ACE for the TRPO process.
