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Latest News
DNFSB spots possible bottleneck in Hanford’s waste vitrification
Workers change out spent 27,000-pound TSCR filter columns and place them on a nearby storage pad during a planned outage in 2023. (Photo: DOE)
While the Department of Energy recently celebrated the beginning of hot commissioning of the Hanford Site’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP), which has begun immobilizing the site’s radioactive tank waste in glass through vitrification, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board has reported a possible bottleneck in waste processing. According to the DNFSB, unless current systems run efficiently, the issue could result in the interruption of operations at the WTP’s Low-Activity Waste Facility, where waste vitrification takes place.
During operations, the LAW Facility will process an average of 5,300 gallons of tank waste per day, according to Bechtel, the contractor leading design, construction, and commissioning of the WTP. That waste is piped to the facility after being treated by Hanford’s Tanks Side Cesium Removal (TSCR) system, which filters undissolved solid material and removes cesium from liquid waste.
According to a November 7 activity report by the DNFSB, the TSCR system may not be able to produce waste feed fast enough to keep up with the LAW Facility’s vitrification rate.
Peter S. Ebey, James M. Dole, Arthur Nobile, Jon R. Schoonover, John Burmann, Bob Cook, Steve Letts, Jorge Sanchez, Abbas Nikroo
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 49 | Number 4 | May 2006 | Pages 859-864
Technical Paper | Target Fabrication | doi.org/10.13182/FST06-A1214
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The purpose of the experiments described in this paper was to expose samples of polymeric materials to a mixture of deuterium-tritium (DT) gas at elevated temperature and pressure to investigate the effects (i.e., damage) on the materials. The materials and exposure parameters were chosen to be relevant to proposed uses of similar materials in inertial fusion ignition experiments at the National Ignition Facility. Two types of samples were exposed and tested. The first type consisted of 10 4-lead ribbon cables of fine manganin wire insulated with polyimide. Wires of this type are proposed for use in thermal shimming of hohlraums and the goal of this experiment was to measure the change in electrical resistance of the insulation due to tritium exposure. The second type of sample consisted of 20 planar polymer samples that may be used as ignition capsule materials. The exposure was at 34.5 GPa (5010 psia) and 70°C for 48 h. The change in electrical resistance of the wire insulation will be presented. The results for capsule materials will be presented in a separate paper in this issue.
