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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Glass strategy: Hanford’s enhanced waste glass program
The mission of the Department of Energy’s Office of River Protection (ORP) is to complete the safe cleanup of waste resulting from decades of nuclear weapons development. One of the most technologically challenging responsibilities is the safe disposition of approximately 56 million gallons of radioactive waste historically stored in 177 tanks at the Hanford Site in Washington state.
ORP has a clear incentive to reduce the overall mission duration and cost. One pathway is to develop and deploy innovative technical solutions that can advance baseline flow sheets toward higher efficiency operations while reducing identified risks without compromising safety. Vitrification is the baseline process that will convert both high-level and low-level radioactive waste at Hanford into a stable glass waste form for long-term storage and disposal.
Although vitrification is a mature technology, there are key areas where technology can further reduce operational risks, advance baseline processes to maximize waste throughput, and provide the underpinning to enhance operational flexibility; all steps in reducing mission duration and cost.
S. Grünhagen, P. D. Brennan, S. Knipe, R. Stagg, J. Yorkshades, JET-EFDA Contributors
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 60 | Number 3 | October 2011 | Pages 931-936
Measurement, Monitoring, and Accountancy | Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Tritium Science and Technology | doi.org/10.13182/FST11-A12568
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The JET Active Gas Handling System (AGHS) analytical glovebox contains a custom built Gas Chromatography (GC) system and an Omegatron Mass Spectrometer. The equipment is primarily used to determine the purity of the hydrogen isotopes recovered and separated by the AGHS.Another application is to analyse the composition of the torus exhaust gas to identify and quantify all compounds including hydrocarbons generated during plasma operation. The installed GC system could only measure hydrocarbons up to propane, hence a new system was added: a Micro Gas Chromatograph, capable of analysing mixtures of hydrocarbons up to decane.Results of the analyses of hydrocarbons at the end of the carbon wall campaign with the new Micro GC are presented in this paper.