Disposition of Mixed Waste Organics at the Los Alamos Plutonium Facility
- Los Alamos National Laboratory
Twenty-six organic solution items totaling 37 L had been stored in the Plutonium Facility vault at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, some for up to 18 years. They were residues from analytical analyses of radioactive solutions. All items had a Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) defined hazardous waste combined with special nuclear materials (SNM) and were stored as a mixed waste in a vault room pending disposition. Seventeen items had plutonium concentrations above established discard limits for organics. Due to their age, the containers were not suitable for long-term storage because a container failure would contaminate the vault area and personnel. Therefore, an aqueous-based flowsheet was developed to remove the plutonium so that the items could be discarded. The procedure was a wash with either sodium fluoride and/or potassium hydroxide solution followed by absorbing the discardable organic residues on vermiculite. When this approach did not work permission was obtained to discard the items as a transuranic (TRU) mixed waste without further treatment. The remaining nine solution items were consolidated into two items, repackaged, and stored for future disposition. The overall effort required approximately four months to disposition all the items. This report details the administrative and regulatory requirements that had to be addressed, the results of processing, and the current status of the items.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Lab., NM (US)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- US Department of Energy (US)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-36
- OSTI ID:
- 3507
- Report Number(s):
- LA-13558-MS
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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