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Fusion Science and Technology
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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.
Glen R. Longhurst, Roland A. Jalbert, Richard L. Rossmassler
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 15 | Number 2 | March 1989 | Pages 1331-1336
Tritium Technology | doi.org/10.13182/FST89-A39873
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An investigation of the performance of atmospheric detritiation systems and of possible ways for improving their performance was undertaken. Small-scale experiments demonstrated that system performance is strongly dependent on catalyst bed temperature. That may be helped by addition of protium to the process gas stream, but added protium at constant temperature does not increase conversion to HTO. Collection of the HTO on dry sieve with residual HTO fraction of less than one part in 107 was observed. Ways suggested for improvement in collection of HTO on molecular sieve beds include adding H2O to the stream entering the molecular sieve and premoistening of the sieve with H2O. While these improvement schemes may reduce HTO emissions they increase the amount of tritiated waste that must be handled.