Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

The management at Sellafield of plutonium contaminated waste materials

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:111763
 [1];  [2]
  1. British Nuclear Fuels plc, Cumbria (United Kingdom)
  2. BNFL Inc., Richland, WA (United States)

The strategy for management of plutonium contaminated materials (PCM, the UK equivalent of the US category of contact-handled transuranic waste) at the Sellafield site of British Nuclear Fuels plc (BNFL) has been developed to correspond with the Government-approved strategy for intermediate-level radioactive waste. The aim of the strategy is to achieve a product which is suitable for final disposal to a deep geological repository to be established by UK Nirex Limited, the UK waste disposal agency. This paper describes the processes involved in achieving this aim. The main elements of the strategy are the removal of waste from temporary stores, accumulation of all PCM in purpose built interim stores, followed by size reduction (as necessary), compaction and encapsulation in cement rendering it suitable for continued storage and final disposal to the deep geological repository.

Research Organization:
Arizona Univ., Tucson, AZ (United States). Coll. of Engineering and Mines; New Mexico State Univ., University Park, NM (United States); Waste-Management Education and Research Consortium (WERC), Las Cruces, NM (United States); USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
OSTI ID:
111763
Report Number(s):
CONF-940225--Vol.1
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English