STATUS & DIRECTION OF THE BULK VITRIFICATION PROGRAM FOR THE SUPPLEMENTAL TREATMENT OF LOW ACTIVITY TANK WASTE AT HANFORD

Conference · Wed Jan 12 00:00:00 EST 2005

OSTI ID:836351

RAYMOND, R E

The DOE Office of River Protection (ORP) is managing a program at the Hanford site that will retrieve and treat more than 200 million liters (53 million gal.) of radioactive waste stored in underground storage tanks. The waste was generated over the past 50 years as part of the nation's defense programs. The project baseline calls for the waste to be retrieved from the tanks and partitioned to separate the highly radioactive constituents from the large volumes of chemical waste. These highly radioactive components will be vitrified into glass logs in the Waste Treatment Plant (WTP), temporarily stored on the Hanford Site, and ultimately disposed of as high-level waste in the offsite national repository. The less radioactive chemical waste, referred to as low-activity waste (LAW), is also planned to be vitrified by the WTP, and then disposed of in approved onsite trenches. However, additional treatment capacity is required in order to complete the pretreatment and immobilization of the tank waste by 2028, which represents a Tri-Party Agreement milestone. To help ensure that the treatment milestones will be met, the Supplemental Treatment Program was undertaken. The program, managed by CH2M HILL Hanford Group, Inc., involves several sub-projects each intended to supplement part of the treatment of waste being designed into the WTP. This includes the testing, evaluation, design, and deployment of supplemental LAW treatment and immobilization technologies, retrieval and treatment of mixed TRU waste stored in the Hanford Tanks, and supplemental pre-treatment. Applying one or more supplemental treatment technologies to the LAW has several advantages, including providing additional processing capacity, reducing the planned loading on the WTP, and reducing the need for double-shell tank space for interim storage of LAW. In fiscal year 2003, three potential supplemental treatment technologies were evaluated including grout, steam reforming and bulk vitrification using AMEC's In-Container Vitrification{trademark} process. As an outcome of this work, the hulk vitrification process was recommended for further evaluation. In fiscal year 2004, a follow-on bulk vitrification project was initiated to design, procure, assemble and operate a full-scale bulk vitrification pilot-plant to treat low activity tank waste from Hanford tank 241-S-109 under a Research, Development and Demonstration permit. That project is referred to as the Demonstration Bulk Vitrification System (or DBVS). The DBVS project will provide a full-scale bulk vitrification demonstration facility that can be used to assess the effectiveness of the bulk vitrification process under actual operating conditions. The pilot-plant is scheduled to commence operations in late 2005. The Supplemental Treatment Program represents a major element of the ORP's strategy to complete the pretreatment and immobilization of tank wastes by 2028. This paper will provide an overview of the bulk vitrification process and the progress in establishing the pilot-plant.

• Research Organization: CH2M Hill Hanford Group, Inc., Richland, WA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT (US)
• DOE Contract Number: AC27-99RL14047
• OSTI ID: 836351
• Report Number(s): RPP-24372-FP, Rev.0; TRN: US0500582
• Resource Relation: Conference: Conference title not supplied, Conference location not supplied, Conference dates not supplied; Other Information: PBD: 12 Jan 2005
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE WASTES, AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION
ALPHA-BEARING WASTES
CHEMICAL WASTES
DESIGN
EVALUATION
PROCESSING
RADIOACTIVE WASTES
STEAM
TANKS
TESTING
UNDERGROUND STORAGE
VITRIFICATION
WASTE PROCESSING
WASTE STORAGE
WASTES