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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.
A. S. Poore, W. D. Jacobs
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 48 | Number 1 | July-August 2005 | Pages 298-301
Technical Paper | Tritium Science and Technology - Tritium Handling Facilities | doi.org/10.13182/FST05-A931
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A project to relocate and consolidate tritium processing activities from old, second generation buildings to newer buildings was initiated in the late 1990's at the Savannah River Site. The new waste gas processing systems located in the newer facility utilize recent technology, including metal getters, an innovative permeator design, and TCAP (Thermal Cycling Absorption Process) technology for removal of residual tritium prior to releasing the effluent to the environment. Startup testing results (using protium and deuterium) and corresponding lessons learned for these systems are presented. These systems have since successfully completed tritium startup testing and are operational.