Final report on investigation of stability of organic materials in salt cake

Technical Report · Thu Apr 01 04:00:00 EST 1976

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/7274835· OSTI ID:7274835

Beitel, G A

On the basis of this work the following conclusions, which all contribute to confidence that salt cake is stable against exothermic reactions, were reached. Organics added to the waste tanks were not nitrated at the time of addition and cannot have been subsequently transformed to detonatable nitrated organics. Whatever organic has found its way into the tanks has been and will be essentially unaffected by radiation. Mixtures of the types of organics which could have been added to the waste tanks with either simulated salt cake or pure sodium nitrate are not detonatable. The maximum amount of organic which could have been added to the waste tanks is less than 0.9 weight percent of the salt cake, a concentration far below the concentration required to support combustion. The many years during which the liquid high-level waste was boiling, and the subsequent evaporation-crystallization processing, have allowed many of the more volatile organics to be distilled off, further reducing the maximum expected concentration of organics. The occurrence of an explosive exothermic reaction of an organic in the waste tanks would require concentration and mixing by an unknown and uncontrolled means. The mixture would then have to remain in its concentrated state long enough to be triggered by an explosion, a totally unreasonable hypothesis.

• Research Organization: Atlantic Richfield Hanford Co., Richland, Wash. (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: E(45-1)-2130
• OSTI ID: 7274835
• Report Number(s): ARH-LD-126
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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