Analytical challenges, strategies, and technology needs for the Hanford Waste Tank Program
- Westinghouse Hanford Co., Richland, WA (United States)
The U.S. Department of Energy`s Hanford site, in eastern Washington, must remediate 177 underground storage tanks, each one containing 200,000 to 4,000,000 liters of radioactive waste materials. Characterization of the chemical and physical properties of the waste material is required to ensure safe interim storage of the waste and to design the retrieval and preprocessing methods. The hostile environment, limited tank access, heterogeneous nature of the tank contents and difficulties in acquiring and handling samples complicate the characterization task. In situ screening of the waste material may expedite some analytic tasks, as will advanced sampling systems. As a first step toward in situ screening, Raman and near-infrared spectroscopy systems have been tested with waste samples in a hot cell. Laser ablation/mass spectroscopy systems are being tested with tracer loaded waste simulants. It is anticipated that future refinements of spectroscopic systems will allow deployment of probes inside the waste tanks and in process lines during the retrieval and processing of the waste.
- OSTI ID:
- 191652
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-941098-; TRN: 95:006733-0008
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: FACSS XXI: 21st annual conference of the Federation of Analytical Chemistry and Spectroscopy Societies (FACSS), St. Louis, MO (United States), 2-7 Oct 1994; Other Information: PBD: 1994; Related Information: Is Part Of 21st annual conference of the Federation of Analytical Chemistry and Spectroscopy Societies; PB: 257 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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