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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.
S. Cantor, W. R. Grimes
Nuclear Technology | Volume 22 | Number 1 | April 1974 | Pages 120-126
Technical Paper | Fusion Reactor Materials / Material | doi.org/10.13182/NT74-A16281
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Through extensive testing in fission-reactor programs, molten Li2BeF4 is known to be compatible with graphite and with many useful structural metals. In service as a Controlled Thermonuclear Reactor blanket-coolant fluid, however, corrosion by this molten salt may be enhanced by (a) the effect of magnetically induced electric fields, (b) the consequences of chemical transmutations in the blanket, and (c) inadvertent mixing with other materials through leaks between fluid circuits. Fused salts flowing at high velocity across strong magnetic fields can experience intolerably large induced electromotive forces (emfs); measurements of emfs induced in aqueous solutions with electrical conductivities less than that of Li2BeF4 were found to obey Faraday’s law of electromagnetic induction even under highly turbulent flow conditions. Induced emfs, of course, are absent when the flow is parallel to the magnetic field lines and should be minimized by such flow conditions wherever possible. In regions where molten salt enters and leaves the blanket structure, induced emfs can be minimized by (a) dividing the flow among many small parallel pipes, (b) using ferromagnetic pipe sections, and (c) perhaps maintaining a frozen layer of salt on internal surfaces of pipe. Transmutations of lithium, beryllium, and fluorine in the blanket yield oxidants capable of corroding structural metals. Such corrosion can presumably be avoided by adding a reductant of suitable redox potential to the blanket. For example, low concentration of dissolved CeF3 or slurried beryllium should be capable of reacting with the oxidants and minimizing their deleterious effect. Leaks of steam or air through faulty pipes or heat exchangers would lead to markedly enhanced corrosion with most or all metals of interest, and leaks of alkali metals into Li2BeF4 would cause reduction of BeF2 to beryllium. Such inadvertent mixing would prove troublesome but of less consequence than similar leakage of steam or air into liquid alkali metals.