Implementing a Low Activity Waste Direct Feed Capability in the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant - 17277

Conference · Sat Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 2017

OSTI ID:22794648

Hamel, William; Bruggeman, Jeffrey; Young, Jason ^[1]

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1. US DOE (United States)

The original design of the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) requires that all waste be processed through the Pretreatment (PT) Facility in order to separate the low-activity waste and high-level waste streams. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has developed a sequenced approach to completing the WTP Project, beginning with feeding some liquid waste directly to the Low-Activity Waste (LAW) Facility, bypassing the PT Facility. Sending low-activity waste from the tank farms to the LAW Facility is referred to as direct-feed LAW (DFLAW). Using this approach, low-activity waste will be pretreated in a Low-Activity Waste Pretreatment System (LAWPS) for cesium and solids separation to meet LAW Facility safety basis requirements and produce an acceptable low-activity waste product. The waste feed will then be transferred to the LAW Facility where it will be immobilized in glass, poured into stainless steel containers, and then transported by truck to the Integrated Disposal Facility, a mixed waste burial ground located in the Hanford 200-East Area. The primary driver for the DFLAW approach is to enable commissioning of the LAW Facility for low-activity waste processing prior to the completion and availability of the PT and High-Level Waste (HLW) facilities. As such, the functions intended to be provided to the LAW Facility by the PT Facility and the common functionality with the HLW Facility must be refined and modified to enable DFLAW operations. The DFLAW approach will provide necessary systems and facilities to replace these enabling PT Facility functions until the PT Facility is completed and commissioned. For example, liquid effluents from the LAW Facility, primarily melter offgas condensate, will be processed in a new effluent management facility (EMF) within the WTP footprint rather than sending the effluent back to the PT Facility for processing. During DFLAW operations approximately 3 785 m{sup 3} (1 million gallons) of double-shell tank (DST) waste will be delivered to WTP for treatment each year of operation, and nominally produce 21 metric tons of immobilized low-activity waste glass per day. The resultant freed space in the DSTs will support safe tank farm operation and staging of additional waste for treatment. In December 2016, DOE executed a contract modification and approved an incremental change to the project's performance baseline to complete the WTP facilities needed to allow direct feed of low-activity waste to the LAW Facility. The revised performance baseline supports completion and cold commissioning of the WTP facilities needed for DFLAW operations no later than August 2023. The design of modifications to WTP facilities needed to enable DFLAW operations is more that 60 percent complete. DOE approved the preliminary safety basis for DFLAW modifications to WTP based on the 30 percent design package in early 2016. Early construction work for DFLAW modifications to WTP began in mid-2015. Long-lead procurement actions for some of the more complex equipment needed for LAW Facility effluent treatment were initiated in early 2016. (authors)

• Research Organization: WM Symposia, Inc., PO Box 27646, 85285-7646 Tempe, AZ (United States)
• OSTI ID: 22794648
• Report Number(s): INIS-US--19-WM-17277
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
CESIUM
GROUND DISPOSAL
HIGH-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTES
LIQUID WASTES
LOW-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTES
STAINLESS STEELS
STORAGE FACILITIES
UNDERGROUND DISPOSAL
WASTE PROCESSING