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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.
Lloyd S. Nelson, Joseph D. Krueger, Michael L. Corradini
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 26 | Number 3 | November 1994 | Pages 983-987
Tritium Technology, Safety, Environment, and Remote Maintenance | Proceedings of the Eleventh Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy New Orleans, Louisiana June 19-23, 1994 | doi.org/10.13182/FST94-A40282
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Twenty scoping experiments were performed to investigate the behavior of nominally 0.5 g molten lithium drops when released into 0.7 L of the organic coolant Therminol 66 at local atmospheric pressure using a vortex insertion technique. Diagnostics consisted of video and photographic imaging and several chemical analyses. Six coolant/Li temperature pairs were used: 300/300; 300/530; 300/770; 464/530; 600/530 and 600/770, all nominal in K. Because the coolant: Li weight ratio was 103, only rapid (∼0.5 s) quenching reactions could be studied when TLi > Tc; when TLi ≤ Tc, however, both rapid and slower (min) interactions could be investigated. In none of the experiments was there any indication of (a) a vigorous, self-sustaining chemical reaction between the lithium and the organic coolant, or (b) the formation of water-insoluble debris, in particular carbon. Our work confirms the benign behavior at similar temperatures reported earlier by others.
