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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.
Gregg A. Morgan, Brittany J. Hodge, Anita S. Poore
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 72 | Number 3 | October 2017 | Pages 426-433
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1333858
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A prototype Pd-Ag diffuser manufactured by Power and Energy was evaluated for performance characterization testing at the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL). The prototype Pd-Ag diffuser was characterized to determine the overall performance as a function of the permeation of hydrogen through the membrane. The tests described in this report consider the effects of feed gas compositions, feed flow rates, pump type and internal tube pressure on the permeation of H2 through the Pd-Ag tubes.
For the 96% H2/4% N2 mixtures, nearly all of the H2 permeated through the membrane at flow rates up to 3000 sccm. However, results for the 50% H2/50% N2 composition show that 100% permeation is only achieved up to a flow rate of 1000 sccm. A significant reduction in the hydrogen permeation was observed for the 2% H2/98% N2 composition. This Pd-Ag diffuser design is not suitable for a tritium purification system within the fusion energy fuel cycle. Typical tritium purification systems can be expected to see a range of hydrogen isotope concentrations and this particular prototype diffuser is only suitable for process streams containing high concentrations of hydrogen isotopes.
Significant efforts should be undertaken to identify additional commercial vendors for Pd-Ag diffusers. It is of critical importance to identify, procure, and test different Pd-Ag designs that can perform well over a range of hydrogen isotope concentrations for tritium gas processing applications.