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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.
J. Mitsui, Y. Okada, F. Sakai, T. Ide, K. Hirata, T. Yamanishi, K. Okuno, Y. Naruse, I. Yamamoto, A. Kanagawa
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 19 | Number 3 | May 1991 | Pages 1646-1650
Material and Tritium | Proceedings of the Ninth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (Oak Brook, Illinois, October 7-11, 1990) | doi.org/10.13182/FST91-A29577
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An experiment on the separation of hydrogen isotopes has been carried out by using a thermal diffusion column with a “cryogenic-wall” cooled by liquid nitrogen. The separation factor was compared with that of a ordinary column cooled by water, and the separation factor for the “cryogenic-wall” column is higher than that for the “water cooled wall” column. Moreover, the separation factor obtained by a 473 K operation of the hot wire in the “cryogenic-wall” system was found to be greater than that by 1073 K operation. Probably because the isotopic exchange reaction between H2 and D2 was suppressed in 473 K operation; there was no HD component observed in this case, while an equilibrium amount of HD component was immediately detected in 1073 K operation.
