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U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Department of Energy pretreatment of high-level and low-level wastes

Conference ·
OSTI ID:205172

The remediation of the 1 {times} 10{sup 8} gal of highly radioactive waste in the underground storage tanks (USTs) at five US Department of Energy (DOE) sites is one of DOE`s greatest challenges. Therefore, the DOE Office of Environmental Management has created the Tank Focus Area (TFA) to manage an integrated technology development program that results in the safe and efficient remediation of UST waste. The TFA has divided its efforts into five areas, which are safety, characterization, retrieval/closure, pretreatment, and immobilization. All DOE pretreatment activities are integrated by the Pretreatment Technical Integration Manager of the TFA. For FY 1996, the 14 pretreatment tasks are divided into 3 systems: supernate separations, sludge treatment, and solid/liquid separation. The plans and recent results of these TFA tasks, which include two 25,000-gal demonstrations and two former TFA tasks on Cs removal, are presented. The pretreatment goals are to minimize the volume of high-level waste and the radioactivity in low-level waste.

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
DOE Contract Number:
AC05-84OR21400
OSTI ID:
205172
Report Number(s):
CONF-951057--8; ON: DE96005398
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English