Washing and caustic leaching of Hanford tank sludges: results of FY 1996 studies

Technical Report · Thu Aug 01 04:00:00 EDT 1996

OSTI ID:371294

Lumetta, G J; Rapko, B M; Wagner, M J; Liu, J; Chen, Y L

During the past few years, the primary mission and the US DOE Hanford site has changed from producing plutonium to restoring the environment. Large volumes of high-level radioactive wastes (HLW), generated during past Pu production and other operations, are stored in underground tanks on site. The current plan for remediating the Hanford tank farms consists of waste retrieval, pretreatment, processing (immobilization), and disposal. The HLW will be immobilized in a borosilicate glass matrix; the resulting glass canisters will then be disposed of in a geologic repository. Because of the expected high cost of HLW vitrification and geologic disposal, pretreatment processes will be implemented to reduce the volume of borosilicate glass in disposing of the tank wastes. This report describes the sludge washing and caustic leaching tests conducted at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in FY 1996. These tests supported the development of the baseline Hanford tank sludge pretreatment flowsheet.

• Research Organization: Pacific Northwest National Lab., Richland, WA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: AC06-76RL01830
• OSTI ID: 371294
• Report Number(s): PNNL--11278; ON: DE96050268
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

05 NUCLEAR FUELS
COMPILED DATA
HIGH-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTES
QUANTITATIVE CHEMICAL ANALYSIS
RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT
REMEDIAL ACTION
SLUDGES
TANKS
UNDERGROUND STORAGE
VITRIFICATION