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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.
L. K. Heung, G. C. Staack
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 48 | Number 1 | July-August 2005 | Pages 585-588
Technical Paper | Tritium Science and Technology - Materials Interaction and Permeation | doi.org/10.13182/FST05-A993
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The use of catalysts to improve the exchange kinetics between hydrogen isotopes in the gas phase and that in the solid phase was investigated. Granules of alumina, silica and molecular sieve were coated with platinum as the catalyst. The granules saturated with water at room humidity were packed in a 2-cm diameter column for isotope exchange tests. Deuterium and protium were alternately fed through the column at a constant rate. Isotope concentration in column effluent was monitored to generate isotope break-through curves. The curves were analyzed to produce information on the kinetics and capacity of the material. The results showed that all materials tested provided some extent of isotope exchange but some were superior both in kinetics and capacity. This paper will present the test results.