Foam testing of an alternative antifoam agent for the processing of radioactive sludge in the Defense Waste Processing Facility
The Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) at the Savannah River Site is responsible for immobilizing high level radioactive waste (HLW) as glass-filled steel canisters for permanent storage. In the DWPF facility, the HLW sludge undergoes chemical treatment to prepare it for vitrification in a melter. The generation of stable foams is possible during treatment. The current DWPF antifoam is ineffective in preventing and minimizing the formation of foam. The adverse consequences of excess foam can be severe enough to cause foam to exit the evaporator and collect in the condensate. A foamover will contaminate the relatively clean condensate with HLW solids. It can also potentially lead to the production of an unsuitable melter feed that would not make quality glass. Both of these consequences are costly and time consuming to correct. A new antifoam agent was developed by the Illinois Institute of Technology, IIT, for DWPF in an attempt to minimize or eliminate the frequency of these foamovers. This antifoam agent was demonstrated to be superior to the existing DWPF antifoam agent in laboratory scale experiments. However, the DWPF evaporation heat flux was not achievable in the laboratory scale equipment. A 1/240th-scale pilot facility was built to achieve this heat flux and determine whether the existing or new antifoam agent was superior. The pilot facility was built out of glass to allow observation of the foam formation during processing. The experiments used a non-radioactive simulant slurry similar to HLW. The IIT antifoam agent was found to be much more effective than the DWPF antifoam at the current conditions of maximum foam formation. The IIT antifoam agent was comparable or superior to the present DWPF antifoam under all conditions tested. This report summarizes the results of the antifoam agent comparison testing.
- Research Organization:
- Savannah River Site (SRS), Aiken, SC (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- US Department of Energy (US)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC09-96SR18500
- OSTI ID:
- 750911
- Report Number(s):
- WSRC-MS-99-00876; TRN: US0001097
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Spring National Meeting 2000, Atlanta, GA (US), 03/05/2000--03/09/2000; Other Information: PBD: 26 Jan 2000
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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