Single-Step Process to Treat the High Chloride Pu Inventory at the Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP)
- BATTELLE (PACIFIC NW LAB)
The Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP), operated by Fluor Hanford identified that up to 1000 items in their inventory contained high concentrations of chloride salts. This is problematic in that some of these salts are volatile at stabilization temperatures. At temperature (> 950 C) the molten salt is volatile and very corrosive to the furnace and off-gas system. Early testing at PFP indicated that the salt would deposit and plug the off-gas line. After stabilization, a sample of the material is processed through a Loss-on-Ignition (LOI) test. This test is intended to demonstrate that the stabilized material has < 0.5% moisture, which is required to meet Department of Energy (DOE) Order 3013 requirements. This moisture content is determined by heating a sample of the stabilized material to 1000 C and measuring the weight loss. All weight loss is assumed to be moisture (water). Consequently, any salt remaining after stabilization will volatilize to some extent during the LOI testing. This could cause the sample to fail the LOI test and require additional stabilization processing for the failed material. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) identified a potential process whereby the volatile nature of the salts could be used to potentially separate the salts from the plutonium oxide. After identification of this potential process, the Nuclear Material Focus Area acted quickly and as a result, in July 2001, PNNL was funded to design, build, and test a simple proof-of-principle system.
- Research Organization:
- Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- US Department of Energy (US)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC06-76RL01830
- OSTI ID:
- 15002629
- Report Number(s):
- PNNL-13839; 820201000; TRN: US200416%%158
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: PBD: 29 Mar 2002
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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