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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.
N. Baglan, G. Alanic
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 60 | Number 3 | October 2011 | Pages 948-951
Measurement, Monitoring, and Accountancy | Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Tritium Science and Technology | doi.org/10.13182/FST11-A12572
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Tritium exists in environmental samples as: (i) Tissue Free Water Tritium (TFWT) and associated with the organic matter (OBT) under two forms; (ii) bound to oxygen and nitrogen atoms into the material (E-OBT); (iii) bound to carbon atoms into the material (NE-OBT). The analysis of the NE-OBT fraction requires the elimination of E-OBT prior measurement. This operation is generally performed through labile exchange supposing that only isotopic exchange occurs. Most of the time, the recovered exchange water are coloured indicating that other mechanisms arise.To identify and to understand these mechanisms, the combination of two analytical tools, a CHNS-O elemental analyser and a spectrophotometer was used. NE-OBT analyses are performed on numerous environmental samples. In this work aliquots of those samples, under their solid form, were taken before and after labile exchange for elemental analysis purposes. In the same time the exchange waters were stored until spectrophotometric measurements. Solid analysis show that an evolution of the elemental composition could occur during the labile exchange with potential analytical impact. Moreover, it gives first ideas on which molecule could be solubilised. This trend is confirmed through spectrophotometric analysis where bands are observed for wavelength characteristics of proteins, amino acids, nucleic acids. Those preliminary results obtained using both techniques are promising but needs confirmation in the near future to determine to which extent an analytical impact could occur and to complete the identification of soluble molecules.