The use of filtered bags to increase waste payload capacity
- Safe Sites of Colorado, Golden, CO (United States)
- Los Alamos Technical Associates, Albuquerque, NM (United States)
For the past few years, the Department of Energy has favored the direct disposal of low plutonium content residue materials from Rocky Flats rather than engage in expensive and time consuming plutonium recovery operations. One impediment to direct disposal has been the wattage limit imposed by the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant on hydrogenous materials such as combustibles and sludges. The issue of concern is the radiolytic generation and accumulation of hydrogen and other explosive gases in waste containers. The wattage limits that existed through 1996 restricted the amount of plutonium bearing hydrogenous materials that could be packaged in a WIPP bound waste drum to only a fraction of the capacity of a drum. Typically, only about one kilogram of combustible residue could be packaged in a waste drum before the wattage limit was exceeded resulting in an excessively large number of drums to be procured, stored, shipped, and interred. The Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site has initiated the use of filtered plastic bags (called bag-out bags) used to remove transuranic waste materials from glove box lines. The bags contain small, disk like HEPA filters which are effective in containing radioactively contaminated particulate material but allow for the diffusion of hydrogen gas. Used in conjunction with filtered 55 gallon drums, filtered bag-out bags were pursued as a means to increase the allowable wattage limits for selected residue materials. In February 1997, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the use of filtered bag-out bags for transuranic waste materials destined for WIPP. The concomitant increase in wattage limits now allows for approximately four times the payload per waste drum for wattage limited materials.
- Research Organization:
- Safe Sites of Colorado, Golden, CO (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Environmental Restoration and Waste Management, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC34-90RF62349
- OSTI ID:
- 650127
- Report Number(s):
- RFP-5154; CONF-980307-; ON: DE98002855; BR: EW0560600; TRN: 98:010009
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Waste management `98, Tucson, AZ (United States), 1-5 Mar 1998; Other Information: PBD: 3 Mar 1998
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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