Speaker
Richard Ford
(SNOLAB)
Description
A large capacity purification plant and fluid handling system has been constructed for the SNO+ neutrino and double-beta decay experiment, located 6800 feet underground at SNOLAB, Canada. SNO+ is a refurbishment of the SNO detector to fill the acrylic vessel with liquid scintillator based on Linear Alkylbenzene (LAB) and 2 g/L PPO, and also has a phase to load nature tellurium into the scintillator for a double-beta decay experiment with 130Te. The plant includes processes multi-stage dual-stream distillation, column water extraction, steam stripping, and functionalized silica gel adsorption columns. The plant also includes systems for preparing the scintillator and metal-loading the scintillator for double-beta decay exposure. We review the basis of design, the purification principles, specifications for the plant, and the construction and installations. Passivation and high-purity cleaning of the plant is currently in progress, and soon we will begin the plant commissioning stage. We discuss the methods for achieving vacuum leak-tightness, passivation and high-purity cleaning, and the safety system requirements for operations in a deep mine.
Primary author
Richard Ford
(SNOLAB)
