Preliminary Glass Development and Testing for Incontainer Vitrification of Hanford Low‐Activity Waste

Abstract

Roughly 50 million gallons of high-level waste (HLW) are stored at the Hanford site. This waste will be separated into HLW and low-activity waste (LAW) fractions and each fraction will be immobilized for final storage/disposal. The US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of River Protection (ORP) is constructing a Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) which will be capable of separating the waste, vitrifying the entire HLW fraction of the waste and vitrifying roughly 50% the LAW fraction. The remaining fraction of LAW will be immobilized by one of a number of possible technologies. ORP is currently evaluating options for LAW immobilization. One possible option is In-Container Vitrification (ICV) of the LAW. ICV is a technology developed by AMEC, GeoMelt Division, for treatment of hazardous, radioactive, and mixed wastes. The ICV process, as applied to Hanford LAW, includes the blending of liquid waste with additives (primarily composed of local soil) and drying to a granular state. The dried material is loaded into a refractory lined steel box and melted by passing a current through the material between two graphite electrodes. The box containing the molten waste/additive mixture is cooled, backfilled, and disposed of. The purpose of the study was tomore » develop a glass composition suitable for the demonstration of ICV on Hanford LAW at full scale. Testing included crucible-scale tests with simulants and actual Hanford LAW. Following the crucible-scale tests, engineering-scale and large-scale melts were performed with LAW simulants. This paper discusses the formulation and testing of glass compositions for ICV of Hanford LAW at crucible scale. The results from process scale-up test are reported elsewhere.« less