Chemical Speciation of Americium, Curium and Selected Tetravalent Actinides in High Level Waste
Large volumes of high-level waste (HLW) currently stored in tanks at DOE sites contain both sludges and supernatants. The sludges are composed of insoluble precipitates of actinides, radioactive fission products, and nonradioactive components. The supernatants are alkaline carbonate solutions, which can contain soluble actinides, fission products, metal ions, and high concentrations of major electrolytes including sodium hydroxide, nitrate, nitrite, phosphate, carbonate, aluminate, sulfate, and organic complexants. The organic complexants include several compounds that can form strong aqueous complexes with actinide species and fission products including ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA), N-(2-hydroxyethyl)ethylenediaminetriacetic acid (HEDTA), nitrilotriacetic acid (NTA), iminodiacetic acid (IDA), citrate, glycolate, gluconate, and degradation products, formate and oxalate. The goal of this project is to determine the effects of hydrolysis, carbonate complexation, and metal ion displacement on trivalent and selected tetravalent actinide speciation in the presence of organic chelates present in tank waste and to use these data to develop accurate predictive thermodynamic models for use in chemical engineering applications at Hanford and other DOE sites.
- Research Organization:
- Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA (US)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC) (US)
- OSTI ID:
- 839297
- Report Number(s):
- EMSP-73749-2004; R&D Project: EMSP 73749; TRN: US200514%%672
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: PBD: 1 Jun 2004
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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