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Title: WTP Waste Feed Qualification: Glass Fabrication Unit Operation Testing Report

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1265089· OSTI ID:1265089
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [3]
  1. Savannah River Site (SRS), Aiken, SC (United States). Savannah River National Lab. (SRNL). Hanford Missions Programs
  2. Savannah River Site (SRS), Aiken, SC (United States). Savannah River National Lab. (SRNL). Process Technology Programs
  3. Savannah River Site (SRS), Aiken, SC (United States). Savannah River National Lab. (SRNL). Engineering Process Development

The waste feed qualification program is being developed to protect the Hanford Tank Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) design, safety basis, and technical basis by assuring waste acceptance requirements are met for each staged waste feed campaign prior to transfer from the Tank Operations Contractor to the feed receipt vessels inside the Pretreatment Facility. The Waste Feed Qualification Program Plan describes the three components of waste feed qualification: 1. Demonstrate compliance with the waste acceptance criteria 2. Determine waste processability 3. Test unit operations at laboratory scale. The glass fabrication unit operation is the final step in the process demonstration portion of the waste feed qualification process. This unit operation generally consists of combining each of the waste feed streams (high-level waste (HLW) and low-activity waste (LAW)) with Glass Forming Chemicals (GFCs), fabricating glass coupons, performing chemical composition analysis before and after glass fabrication, measuring hydrogen generation rate either before or after glass former addition, measuring rheological properties before and after glass former addition, and visual observation of the resulting glass coupons. Critical aspects of this unit operation are mixing and sampling of the waste and melter feeds to ensure representative samples are obtained as well as ensuring the fabrication process for the glass coupon is adequate. Testing was performed using a range of simulants (LAW and HLW simulants), and these simulants were mixed with high and low bounding amounts of GFCs to evaluate the mixing, sampling, and glass preparation steps in shielded cells using laboratory techniques. The tests were performed with off-the-shelf equipment at the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) that is similar to equipment used in the SRNL work during qualification of waste feed for the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) and other waste treatment facilities at the Savannah River Site. It is not expected that the exact equipment used during this testing will be used during the waste feed qualification testing for WTP, but functionally similar equipment will be used such that the techniques demonstrated would be applicable. For example, the mixing apparatus could use any suitable mixer capable of being remoted and achieving similar mixing speeds to those tested.

Research Organization:
Savannah River Site (SRS), Aiken, SC (United States). Savannah River National Lab. (SRNL)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Environmental Management (EM)
DOE Contract Number:
DE-AC09-08SR22470
OSTI ID:
1265089
Report Number(s):
SRNL-STI-2016-00099; TRN: US1601618
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English