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The Radiation Protection and Shielding Division is developing and promoting radiation protection and shielding aspects of nuclear science and technology — including interaction of nuclear radiation with materials and biological systems, instruments and techniques for the measurement of nuclear radiation fields, and radiation shield design and evaluation.
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2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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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.
Hee-Chul Yang, Hee-Chul Eun, Yung-Zun Cho, Han-Soo Lee, In-Tae Kim
Nuclear Technology | Volume 171 | Number 3 | September 2010 | Pages 300-305
Technical Paper | Pyro 08 Special / Reprocessing | doi.org/10.13182/NT10-A10865
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A fundamental study on the distillation rate on LiCl-KCl eutectic salt under different vacuums from 66 to 6600 Pa (0.5 to 50 mm Hg) was performed by using both a nonisothermal and an isothermal thermogravimetric (TG) analysis. Based on the nonisothermal TG data, distillation rate equations as a function of the temperature could be derived. Calculated flux by these model flux equations was in agreement with the distillation rate obtained from isothermal TG analysis. A salt distillation operation with a moderated distillation rate of 10-4 to 10-5 molcm-2s-1 is possible at temperatures of <1300 K and vacuums of 660 to 6600 Pa. An [approximately]99% salt distillation efficiency was obtained after 1 h at a temperature above 1150 K under 6600 Pa. An increase in the vaporizing surface area is relatively effective for removing residual salt in the remaining particles, when compared to that for the vaporizing time. More than 99.95% of total distillation efficiency was obtained for a 1-h distillation operation by increasing the inner surface area from 4.52 to 12.56 cm2 (about 3 times increase).