Aqueous Corrosion Behavior of Glass Phase of Simulated Low Level Waste Form Produced by In-can Type Induction-Heated Melting

Abstract

Static corrosion tests were performed for the glass phase of a simulated waste form of non-combustible radioactive low-level waste to study a basic aqueous corrosion behavior. The waste form, which was fabricated from simulated waste sample by use of in-can type induction-heated melting, consists of two separated phases; a glass phase and a metal phase. Tests were performed for the glass phase from two types of the waste form with different chemical composition at 35°C and S/V ratio of 2,600 m−1. The glass phase with both types showed an incongruent dissolution similar to conventional high-level radioactive waste (HLW) glasses, i.e., the normalized elemental mass loss (NLi) for soluble elements such as B and Na continued to increase after the saturation of insoluble elements such as Si, A1 and Ca. The NLi for B increased in proportion to the square root of time except for early stage, which suggests that the rate of the long-term dissolution or alteration may be controlled by a diffusion process. Potential secondary phases forming as the results of incongruent dissolution were estimated to be kaolinite and calcite by comparison of the measured solution data with the thermodynamically calculated phase stability relationships. These results suggest that the glass phase has a potential chemical durability not so different from conventional HLW glasses.