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Title: Ferrocyanide Safety Project: FY 1991 annual report

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/7239841· OSTI ID:7239841

The Hanford Ferrocyanide Task Team is addressing issues involving ferrocyanide precipitates in the single-shell waste storage tanks (SSTs), in particular the risk of explosion. This Task Team, which is composed of researchers from Westinghouse Hanford Company (WHC), Pacific Northwest Laboratory (PNL), an outside consultants, was formed in response to the need for an updated analysis of safety questions on the Hanford SSTSs. The Ferrocyanide Safety Project, discussed in this report, is being conducted by PNL as part of the Waste Tank Safety Program led by WHC. The overall purpose of the WHC program, which is sponsored by the US Department of Energy's Tank Safety Project Office, is to provide technical information on ferrocyanide chemistry and its interaction and reactive behavior with other tank constituents. Ultimately, this information will be used to maintain the tanks in a safe condition, implement interim stabilization strategies, and identify optimal disposal options. While by itself ferrocyanide is a stable complex of ferrous ion and cyanide, it can be made to explode in the laboratory in the presence of oxidizing materials such as nitrates and/or nitrites temperatures above 280{degree}C or by sufficient electrical spark. The specific goal of the PNL project is so determine the conditions necessary for the ferrocyanide-bearing wastes in Hanford SSTs to represent a hazard, to determine the conditions where these same wastes am not a hazard, or to determine the conditions which are necessary to assure the wastes are safe prior to treatment for permanent disposal. This annual report gives the results of the work conducted by PNL in FY 1991. The activities mainly focused on preparing and characterizing synthetic wastes and alkali nickel ferrocyanides produced using the In-Farm cesium scavenging flowsheet and pure potential nickel ferrocyanides that could be produced by all of the cesium scavenging flowsheets.

Research Organization:
Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE; USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
DOE Contract Number:
AC06-76RL01830
OSTI ID:
7239841
Report Number(s):
PNL-8165; ON: DE92017953
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English