Mercury Speciation in Savannah River Site High-Level Waste: Determination and Implications for Waste Handling and Disposal - 16178
- Savannah River National Laboratory (United States)
- Eurofins Frontier Global Sciences (United States)
- Savannah River Remediation, LLC (United States)
As part of a larger program to address mercury issues at the Savannah River Site, a number of samples from across the salt processing flowsheet have been collected and analyzed for several mercury species. The results indicate the presence of organomercury species, predominately methylmercury cation. This result was not expected, and it represents a significant paradigm shift in the understanding of mercury chemistry in high-level tank waste. Concentrations of total and soluble mercury have been measured as high as 0.5 g/L with methylmercury concentrations of at least fifty percent of that value. The distribution of mercury species being observed have ramifications to waste processing strategies. In particular, the mercury behavior across the cesium solvent extraction process has been examined. Leachates, from toxicity testing of the cementitious waste form used for decontaminated salt waste at Savannah River, have been tested and shows methylmercury as the dominant extractable species. (authors)
- Research Organization:
- WM Symposia, Inc., PO Box 27646, 85285-7646 Tempe, AZ (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 22838057
- Report Number(s):
- INIS-US-19-WM-16178; TRN: US19V1250083412
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: WM2016: 42. Annual Waste Management Symposium, Phoenix, AZ (United States), 6-10 Mar 2016; Other Information: Country of input: France; 9 refs.; available online at: http://archive.wmsym.org/2016/index.html
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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