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DNFSB spots possible bottleneck in Hanford’s waste vitrification
Workers change out spent 27,000-pound TSCR filter columns and place them on a nearby storage pad during a planned outage in 2023. (Photo: DOE)
While the Department of Energy recently celebrated the beginning of hot commissioning of the Hanford Site’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP), which has begun immobilizing the site’s radioactive tank waste in glass through vitrification, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board has reported a possible bottleneck in waste processing. According to the DNFSB, unless current systems run efficiently, the issue could result in the interruption of operations at the WTP’s Low-Activity Waste Facility, where waste vitrification takes place.
During operations, the LAW Facility will process an average of 5,300 gallons of tank waste per day, according to Bechtel, the contractor leading design, construction, and commissioning of the WTP. That waste is piped to the facility after being treated by Hanford’s Tanks Side Cesium Removal (TSCR) system, which filters undissolved solid material and removes cesium from liquid waste.
According to a November 7 activity report by the DNFSB, the TSCR system may not be able to produce waste feed fast enough to keep up with the LAW Facility’s vitrification rate.
Veniamin D. Trenin, Tatiana V. Vasyanina, Ivan A. Alekseev, Kir A. Konoplev, Sergey P. Karpov, Oleg A. Fedorchenko, Sergey D. Bondarenko, V.V. Uborski, T. Voronina JSV “DOL”
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 28 | Number 3 | October 1995 | Pages 767-771
Tritium Processing | Proceedings of the Fifth Topical Meeting on Tritium Technology in Fission, Fusion, and Isotopic Applications Belgirate, Italy May 28-June 3, 1995 | doi.org/10.13182/FST95-A30497
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The problem of the formation and accumulation of the tritiated heavy and light water wastes produced under operation of the various nuclear facilities is considered. It is shown that the tritium contaminated wastes may have a wide spectrum of isotope concentrations of H:D:T and correlation one with other. Reprocessing of these wastes is expensive matter due to the small tritium concentration respectfully to other hydrogen isotopes and as well as the small value of separation factor. It requires the development of the versatile technology. The description of the full scale experimental facility constructed at PNPI is given.