Vitrification of surrogate pretreated Hanford tank AN-102 waste

Journal Article · Sat Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 2000 · Transactions of the American Nuclear Society

OSTI ID:20086973

Zamecnik, J R; Schumacher, R F; Minichan, R L; Burket, P R

The Savannah River Technology Center (SRTC), under a contract with BNFL, Inc., is supporting BNFL, Inc's, efforts for the vitrification of tank wastes at the US Department of Energy Hanford site. Low-activity waste (LAW)--resulting from the pretreatment of waste tank supernate to remove {sup 137}Cs, Tc, {sup 90}Sr, transuranics, and sulfate--is to be immobilized in a borosilicate glass waste form. SRTC is providing research and development support for the development of the pretreatment and vitrification processes. As part of this effort, SRTC will be vitrifying {approximately}6 to 10 {ell} of pretreated supernate waste from Hanford tank AN-102., Hanford tank wastes are categorized by the composition of the waste. Tank AN-102, which contains substantial amounts of organic chelating agents and their radiolysis products, is categorized as Envelope C. A small-scale melter system was constructed to demonstrate the vitrification of Envelope C waste on an engineering scale. The goals of this demonstration are to produce glass from a continuous slurry-fed melter for analysis, to quantify semivolatile and particulate emissions of hazardous metals and radionuclides, and to quantify the emissions of flammable gases (H{sub 2}, CO, CH{sub 4}, etc.). Semivolatile and particulate emissions will be quantified using a modification of EPA SW-846 Method 0060, Determination of Metals in Stack Emissions. Flammable gases will be quantified by on-line gas chromatography. Surrogate wastes will be vitrified to qualify the system for radioactive operation and determine appropriate operating points for radioactive operation. Melter emissions will be quantified as a function of process parameters such as glass bubbler air flow, plenum air purge flow, melter feed rate, total off-gas residence time, plenum temperature, and melt rate. The dependence of flammable gas emissions on temperature and air purge flows is of particular interest because it defines the safe operating window for the melter.

• Research Organization: Westinghouse SRC, Aiken, SC (US)
• OSTI ID: 20086973
• Journal Information: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, Journal Name: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society Vol. 82; ISSN 0003-018X; ISSN TANSAO
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
CERAMIC MELTERS
GASEOUS WASTES
HANFORD RESERVATION
LOW-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTES
OPERATION
VITRIFICATION