Savannah River Operations Office

Savannah River Site

Consolidated Incinerator Facility

Project Code:SR-SW01
Problem Areas:Mixed Waste (Primary)
Health / Ecology / Risk
Life-Cycle Cost in 2007+: $535,000,000
DOE Project Manager: John M. Reynolds, 803-208-1674, john.reynolds@srs.gov
Contractor Manager: A. Maxted, 803-208-1675, tony.maxted@srs.gov
For More Information: http://www.em.doe.gov/closure/pbs/srp1351.html

Maximum Public, Worker, and Environmental Risks in the year 2007 and beyond:

Public: Medium Worker: N/A Environment: High

Technical Approach Provided by Project Manager:

The CIF is the first SRS facility to offer volume reduction /destruction of SRS generated waste. This is accomplished through combustion and conversion of the waste streams to benign carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O). Incineration is a proven low risk technology that has been used in industries world-wide for decades. The rotary kiln incinerator chosen for the CIF is a proven design that has been used successfully at numerous facilities for many years. It is simple to control and maintain, yet versatile enough to incinerate a variety of wastes via a continuous feed process. Significant elements of the operation and management of CIF include: a) Receipt of generated liquid and solid wastes b) Reduction, by incineration, of the toxicity and volume of received wastes c) Monitoring incineration performance to ensure waste destruction efficiency is maintained d) Solidification of ash and blowdown and transfer to the appropriate regulated waste storage or disposal facility e) Scrubbing and filtering exhaust gases to reduce acidity and remove particulate matter; f) Chemical analysis, on-line monitoring and state regulated testing to ensure operations are conducted in accordance with SCDHEC and EPA regulations. In relation to (f) above, regulations do not currently require Continuous Emission Monitors (CEMs) for metals or organics on hazardous waste incinerator stacks. However, the EPA is aggressively seeking CEM technologies which will provide this capability and the next revision of the Clean Air Regulations is expected to include this requirement, specifically for mercury and particulate emissions. In this context, SRS Need SR-1004 is vital in providing CIF with the capability to meet the new regulations. Early operating experience with CIF has shown that, with certain types of feed material, the off-gas HEPA filters are blinding at an alarming rate, causing excessive maintenance requirements. This problem has been partially overcome by running the recirculating blowdown stream more dilute, but this generates larger volumes of blowdown which the existing blowcrete/ashcrete system cannot keep up with. SRS Need SR-1011 has been written to address this problem by providing an evaporator to reduce the volume of blowdown and an improved stabilization system (such as Phosphate-bonded Ceramic) which can be used on a concentrated salt-solution. Without this improvement, the throughput of CIF will be severely limited.

Post 2006 Project Scope Provided by Project Manager:

Incineration will continue to treat benzene from the SRS Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF), purex solvent from the SRS canyons, mandated treatment of mixed waste streams, low-level boxed waste, and aqueous waste for another ten years of service. CIF will also adapt to other waste generator treatment needs, as they arise.

Project End State Provided by Project Manager:

Project end state will occur when identified waste streams (primarily hazardous and mixed wastes) have been processed through CIF. When CIF has completed its mission, it will be turned over to the Environmental Restoration Division for final closure.

The full list of science research awards that have the potential to address projects such as this one, which deals with Mixed Waste and Health / Ecology / Risk problems, are listed in the Index of Research Awards by Environmental Management Problem Area, in the back of this appendix, under the headings "Mixed Waste and Health / Ecology / Risk".

The following awards were identified through systems engineering to have the potential to address the specific needs of this Project. Those research awards that may have the strongest link to this project are designated by the symbol "§".

Award ID
Award Title
§ 60370-CA Rational Design of Metal Ion Sequestering Agents
§ 60155-CO Measurements and Models for Hazardous Chemical and Mixed Wastes
§ 54847-CO Photocatalytic and Chemical Oxidation of Organic Compounds in Supercritical Carbon Dioxide
§ 55012-CO Extraction and Recovery of Mercury and Lead from Aqueous Waste Streams Using Redox-active Layered Metal Chalcogenides
§ 55247-IL Sensors Using Molecular Recognition in Luminescent, Conductive Polymers
§ 55211-IL Cavitational Hydrothermal Oxidation: A New Remediation Process
§ 54942-IN Spectroscopy, Modeling and Computation of Metal Chelate Solubility in Supercritical CO2
§ 54791-KS Managing Tight-binding Receptors for New Separations Technologies
§ 54864-KS Supramolecular Chemistry of Selective Anion Recognition for Anions of Environmental Relevance
§ 60231-MD Novel Miniature Spectrometer for Remote Chemical Detection
§ 54571-MA Removal of Heavy Metals and Organic Contaminants from Aqueous Streams by Novel Filtration Methods
§ 60070-MS The Development of Cavity Ringdown Spectroscopy as a Sensitive Continuous Emission Monitor for Metals
§ 55223-MO De Novo Design of Ligands for Metal Separation
§ 54751-NM High Fluence Neutron Source for Nondestructive Characterization of Nuclear Waste
§ 54770-NM New Anion-Exchange Resins for Improved Separations of Nuclear Materials
§ 55387-NM Photooxidation of Organic Wastes Using Semiconductor Nanoclusters
§ 55171-PA Development of Advanced In-Situ Techniques for Chemistry Monitoring and Corrosion Mitigation in SCWO Environments
§ 54973-TN A Novel Energy-Efficient Plasma Chemical Process for the Destruction of Volatile Toxic Compounds
§ 55103-TN Utilization of Kinetic Isotope Effects for the Concentration of Tritium
§ 55276-TN Fundamental Chemistry and Thermodynamics of Hydrothermal Oxidation Processes
§ 60096-TN Rational Synthesis of Imprinted Organofunctional Sol-Gel Materials for Toxic Metal Separation
§ 54679-WA Architectural Design Criteria for F-Block Metal Ion Sequestering Agents
§ 54897-WA The Sonophysics and Sonochemistry of Liquid Waste Quantification and Remediation
§ 55146-WA Adsorption/Membrane Filtration as a Contaminant Concentration and Separation Process for Mixed Wastes and Tank Wastes
§ 60150-WA Genetic Engineering of a Radiation-Resistant Bacterium for Biodegradation of Mixed Wastes
60319-CA Thermodynamics of the Volatilization of Actinide Metals in the High-Temperature Treatment of Radioactive Wastes
55137-CA Investigation of Novel Electrode Materials for Electrochemically-Based Remediation of High- and Low-Level Mixed Wastes in the DOE Complex
54890-CA On-Line Slurry Viscosity and Concentration Measurement as a Real-Time Waste Stream Characterization Tool
54926-CA Novel Ceramic-Polymer Composite Membranes for the Separation of Hazardous Liquid Waste
54893-FL Research Program to Determine Redox Properties and Their Effects on Speciation and Mobility of Pu in DOE Wastes
60424-ID High Temperature Condensed Phase Mass Spectrometric Analysis
60247-IL Miniature Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectrometer for In-Situ and In-Process Analysis and Monitoring
54834-IN An Investigation of Homogeneous and Heterogeneous Sonochemistry for Destruction of Hazardous Waste
54724-NM Synthesis of New Water-Soluble Metal-Binding Polymers: Combinatorial Chemistry Approach
60163-NM Investigation of Techniques to Improve Continuous Air Monitors Under Conditions of High Dust Loading in Environmental Setting
54639-NM Development of an In-Situ Microsensor for the Measurements of Chromium and Uranium in Groundwater at DOE Sites
55179-NY Acoustic Probe for Solid-Gas-Liquid Suspensions
54674-OH Design and Development of a New Hybrid Spectroelectrochemical Sensor
54122-PA A Broad Spectrum Catalytic System for Removal of Toxic Organics from Water By Deep Oxidation
54856-PA Structural Biology of the Sequestration & Transport of Heavy Metal Toxins: NMR Structure Determination of Proteins Containing the -Cys-X-Y-Cys-metal Binding Motifs
55087-TN Design and Synthesis of the Next Generation of Crown Ethers for Waste Separations: An Inter-Laboratory Comprehensive Proposal
60197-TN Microsensors for In-situ Chemical, Physical, and Radiological Characterization of Mixed Waste
60218-TN Novel Mass Spectrometry Mutation Screening for Contaminant Impact Analysis
54735-TX Development of Inorganic Ion Exchangers for Nuclear Waste Remediation
54996-WA Ionizing Radiation Induced Catalysis on Metal Oxide Particles
60050-WA Chemical Speciation of Inorganic Compounds under Hydrothermal Conditions

The following tree shows how the above awards link to this project. When multiple brances are shown leading to or from a problem area, branches to the left are primary links and branches to the right are secondary.

High Cost Project SR-SW01 - Consolidated Incinerator Facility
                                    
                                    
                                       
Problem Areas Linked to SR-SW01: Mixed Waste Health / Ecology / Risk
                                       
                                       
                                         
Research Awards Linked to SR-SW01:

Pass the mouse over an Award ID for more information, below. Click ID for more detail:

 		 
54571 54679 54751 54770 54791 54847 54864 54897 54942 54973 55012 55103 55146 55171 55211 55223 55247 55276 55387 60070 60096 60150 60155 60231 60370
 
54122 54639 54674 54724 54735 54834 54890 54893 54926 54996 55087 55137 55179 60050 60197 60247 60319 60424
     
54856 60163 60218
    

Next PBS: SR-SW02 - Transuranic Waste Project