Iodine Distribution During Evaporation of Hanford Waste Treatment Plant Direct Feed Low Activity Waste Effluent Management Facility Simulant
- Savannah River Site (SRS), Aiken, SC (United States). Savannah River National Lab. (SRNL)
The Hanford Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) Low Activity Waste (LAW) vitrification facility will generate an aqueous condensate recycle stream from the off-gas system. The baseline plan for disposition of this stream during full WTP operations is to send it to the WTP Pretreatment Facility, where it will be blended with LAW, concentrated by evaporation, and recycled to the LAW vitrification facility. However, during the Direct Feed LAW (DFLAW) scenario, planned disposition of this stream involves concentrating the condensate in a new evaporator at the Effluent Management Facility (EMF) and returning it to the LAW melter. The LAW melter condensate stream will contain components, e.g. halides and sulfates, that are volatile at melter temperatures, have limited solubility in glass waste forms, and present a material corrosion concern. Further, some minor constituents in the melter condensate, such as volatile organic compounds and iodine, have been found to be at least partially volatile in the EMF. The condensate from the EMF will be sent to the Hanford Effluent Treatment Facility (ETF). The presence of some recalcitrant organics and iodine, as 129I, are expected to be problematic in the ETF. In order to better predict and prepare for the distribution of organics and 129I in the flowsheet, it is key to understand their chemistry and experimentally determine their behavior during evaporation. To do this, modeling and testing were performed to examine the speciation of iodine under relevant conditions, as well as determine partitioning of iodine and the organics in the EMF evaporator. This overall program examines the potential treatment and immobilization of the LAW melter condensate stream to enable alternative disposal. The objective of this task was to (1) perform modeling to determine the speciation and fate of iodine species, (2) prepare a simulant of the LAW Melter Off-gas Condensate expected during DFLAW operations, (3) spike in the key volatile organics and non-radioactive iodine, and (4) demonstrate evaporation in order to predict the final composition of the effluents from the EMF evaporator to aid in planning for their disposition. The results of the modeling of iodine speciation indicate that the iodine is expected to remain in the evaporator pot as iodide and possibly iodate ion if the pH is raised to 11.5-12, which is the planned condition for the EMF. Experimental testing confirmed that the iodide remained in the evaporator concentrate and was below detection limits in all condensate and knock-out pot samples, indicating it was not volatile. The organic nitrile compounds that were added to the simulant were absent from the evaporator feed solution, either lost through evaporation, or more likely, decomposition. The acetone and methylene chloride were below the target values in the feed and condensate samples, and were presumably lost to evaporation or decomposition.
- Research Organization:
- Savannah River Site (SRS), Aiken, SC (United States). Savannah River National Lab. (SRNL)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Environmental Management (EM)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC09-08SR22470
- OSTI ID:
- 1569638
- Report Number(s):
- SRNL-STI-2019-00471; TRN: US2100496
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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