Evaluation the microwave heating of spinel crystals in high-level waste glass

Technical Report · Tue Aug 18 00:00:00 EDT 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1212660· OSTI ID:1212660

Christian, J. H. ^[1]; Washington, A. L. ^[1]

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1. Savannah River Site (SRS), Aiken, SC (United States). Savannah River Ecology Lab. (SREL)

In this report, the microwave heating of a crystal-free and a partially (24 wt%) trevorite-crystallized waste glass simulant were evaluated. The results show that a 500 mg piece of partially crystallized waste glass can be heated from room-temperature to above 1600 °C (as measured by infrared radiometry) within 2 minutes using a single mode, highly focused, 2.45 GHz microwave, operating at 300 W. X-ray diffraction measurements show that the partially crystallized glass experiences an 87 % reduction in trevorite following irradiation and thermal quenching. When a crystal-free analogue of the same waste glass simulant composition is exposed to the same microwave radiation it could not be heated above 450 °C regardless of the heating time.

• Research Organization: Savannah River Site (SRS), Aiken, SC (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC09-08SR22470
• OSTI ID: 1212660
• Report Number(s): SRNL-STI-2015-00420
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English