Production of sodalite waste forms by addition of glass

Conference · Mon May 01 04:00:00 EDT 1995

OSTI ID:61707

Pereira, C

Spent nuclear fuel can be treated in a molten salt electrorefiner for conversion into metal and mineral waste forms for geologic disposal. Sodalite is one of the mineral waste forms under study. Fission products in the molten salt are ion-exchanged into zeolite A, which is converted to sodalite and consolidated. Sodalite can be formed directly from mixtures of salt and zeolite A at temperatures above 975 K; however, nepheline is usually produced as a secondary phase. Addition of small amounts of glass frit to the mixture reduced nepheline formation significantly. Loss of fission products was not observed for reaction below 1000 K. Hot-pressing of the sodalite powders yielded dense pellets ({approximately}2.3 g/cm{sup 3}) without any loss of fission product species. Normalized release rates were below 1 g/m{sup 2}{center_dot}day for pre-washed samples in 28-day leach tests based on standard MCC-1 tests but increased with the presence of free salt on the sodalite.

• Research Organization: Argonne National Lab., IL (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: W-31109-ENG-38
• OSTI ID: 61707
• Report Number(s): ANL/CMT/CP--84675; CONF-950401--4; ON: DE95011710
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

05 NUCLEAR FUELS
CESIUM
CHLORIDES
ELECTROREFINING
GLASS
LEACHING
LITHIUM
MINERALS
RADIOACTIVE WASTE PROCESSING
SPENT FUELS
SYNTHESIS
WASTE FORMS
ZEOLITES