Development of Crystal‐Tolerant Waste Glasses

Abstract

The loading of high-level waste in borosilicate glasses is limited by crystallinity constraints that cannot prevent crystal accumulation on the melter bottom and in the glass discharge riser of the melter. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is studying variations in composition that are designed to constrain high-level waste glass compositions and develop the crystal-tolerant high-level waste glasses. These glasses will allow high waste loading without decreasing the lifetime of the melter by keeping the small spinel crystals suspended in the molten glass. Adding ~1 wt% of NiO to the baseline glass caused large spinel crystals to form up to 210 µm in size and resulted in the highest accumulation rate, ~ 227 mm/year, of all tested glasses. Noble metals that were added to high-Ni glass prevented large spinel crystals from forming and decreased the accumulation rate ~ 8.5 times. Adding ~5 wt% of Fe2O3 to the baseline glass resulted in a high number density of ~10-μm spinel crystals that remained suspended in the glass melt even after 17 days at 850°C. The accumulation rate of spinel crystals in high-chromia crucibles was only slightly higher compared with the accumulation rate in double crucibles. Only baseline glass exhibited about 2.6 times faster accumulationmore » rate because of increased number of bigger crystals. These crystals were the result of glass enrichment with chromium that was leached out from the walls of high-chromia crucibles.« less