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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.
N. D. Viza, D. R. Harding
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 73 | Number 2 | March 2018 | Pages 248-257
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1391662
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Fluid properties and the geometry of lab-on-chip (LOC) designs together affect the formation of double emulsions for making inertial confinement fusion targets. Critical fluid properties include the fluids’ velocities and interfacial tension—a coupled effect that is best characterized by the capillary number (Ca)—and the relative volumetric flow rates (φ). The important geometry of the LOC is the orientation of the channels where they intersect (junction) and the spacing between successive junctions. T-junctions and focus-flow devices were tested. The latter geometry of a double cross (focus flow) performed better: single-emulsion droplets were formed over a wide range of fluid parameters (0.03 < φ < 0.17 and 0.0003 < Ca < 0.001) at the first junction, and double emulsions were formed over a more limited range (φ > 0.5 and Ca < 0.4) at the second junction.
A LOC design using the focus-flow design formed water–oil–water double emulsions with the oil phase containing polystyrene. The double emulsions yielded shells with an outer dimension ranging from 2.3 ± 0.07 to 4.3 ± 0.23 mm and a wall thickness ranging from 150 μm to 1.6 mm. The value of the flow-rate ratio at the second junction provided the most effective parameter for controlling the inner diameter, outer diameter, and wall thickness of the shell.