Application of in situ vitrification in the soil subsurface: Engineering-scale testing

Luey, J.; Seiler, D.K.

doi:10.2172/41344

Cited by 6 publications

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“…Bulk vitrification (AMEC Earth & Environmental, Inc.) is a modification to the in situ vitrification (ISV) process developed for remediation of buried wastes and contaminant plumes in soils (TIXIER et al, 1991;LUEY and SEILER, 1995). An in-container vitrification process has been designed in which LAW, soil, and glass forming chemicals are mixed, dried, and then melted at about 1500°C by electrical resistance heating (KIM et al, 2003).…”

Section: Bulk Vitrificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Laboratory Testing of Bulk Vitrified and Steam Reformed Low-Activity Waste Forms to Support A Preliminary Risk Assessment for an Integrated Disposal Facility

McGrail¹,

Pierce²,

Schaef³

et al. 2003

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Low-activity tank wastes will be generated during cleanup of high-level radioactive tank wastes on the Hanford site. The low-activity tank waste will be among the largest volumes of radioactive waste within the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) complex and is one of the largest inventories of long-lived radionuclides planned for disposal in a low-level waste facility. The Department of Energy's Office of River Protection is evaluating several options for immobilization of low-activity tank wastes for eventual disposal in a shallow subsurface facility at the Hanford Site. A significant portion of the waste will be converted into low-activity waste (LAW) glass with a conventional Joule-heated ceramic melter. In addition, three supplemental treatment processes are presently under consideration by the DOE to treat wastes in selected tanks with the goal of accelerating the overall cleanup mission at the Hanford site. These are: 1) bulk vitrification (BV), 2) cementation or the cast stone (CS) process, and 3) steam reformation (SR). The DOE is expected to select by October 2003 one or more of these supplemental treatment technologies for more detailed evaluation. As part of the selection process, a preliminary risk assessment is being performed to evaluate the impacts of the disposal facility on public health and environmental resources. The purpose of this report is to document the laboratory testing that was conducted on BV and SR waste forms to supply the input parameters needed for reactive chemical transport calculations with the Subsurface Transport Over Reactive Multiphases (STORM) code. This same code was used to conduct the 2001 ILAW performance assessment. The required input parameters for BV and SR waste forms are derived from a mechanistic model that describes the effect of solution chemistry on contaminant release rates. The single-pass flow-through test is the principal method used to obtain these input parameters, supplemented by product consistency test measurements and physical property measurements. v 2.1.1.1 X-ray Microtomagraphy (XMT) X-ray microtomography provided a novel way to characterize the froth layer glass properties. Characterization was principally done on a piece of froth-layer glass broken off the sample shown in Figure 2. This sampled was labeled BKV5. The XMT system at PNNL, shown in Figure 5, is an ACTIS 200/160 KXR unit manufactured by Bio-Imaging Research, Inc. The x-ray generator is a Kevex KM16010E-A X-ray tube with spot sizes of 10, 20, 65, 250 µm at power levels 5, 10, 50, and 160 watts. The microfocus X-ray source allows variable slice widths over a nominal range of 10 to 150 µm and can achieve resolution in the focal plane of one one-thousandth of the object diameter. A computer-controlled sample manipulator with a 75-mm diameter turntable allows 365° of continuous rotation and a maximum vertical travel of 150 mm The detection system is a BIR RLS 2048-100 discrete element solid-state detector system consisting of gadolinium oxysulfide scintillator and EG & G Reticon photodiodide...

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Section: Bulk Vitrificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Laboratory Testing of Bulk Vitrified and Steam Reformed Low-Activity Waste Forms to Support A Preliminary Risk Assessment for an Integrated Disposal Facility

McGrail¹,

Pierce²,

Schaef³

et al. 2003

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“…Three supplemental treatment options for immobilization of low-activity tank waste are being evaluated: 1) bulk vitrification (BV), 2) cementation or the cast stone (CS) process, and 3) steam reformation (SR). Bulk vitrification (AMEC Earth & Environmental, Inc.) is a modification to the in situ vitrification (ISV) process developed for remediation of buried wastes and contaminant plumes in soils (TIXIER et al, 1991;LUEY and SEILER, 1995). An in-container vitrification process is envisioned in which LAW and glass forming chemicals are melted by electrical resistance heating.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Strategy to Assess Performance of Selected Low-Activity Waste Forms in an Integrated Disposal Facility

McGrail¹,

Bacon²,

Serne³

et al. 2003

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Low-activity tank wastes will be generated during cleanup of high-level radioactive tank wastes on the Hanford site. The low-activity tank waste will be among the largest volumes of radioactive waste within the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) complex and is one of the largest inventories of long-lived radionuclides planned for disposal in a low-level waste facility. The Department of Energy's Office of River Protection is evaluating several options for immobilization of low-activity tank wastes for eventual disposal in a shallow subsurface facility at the Hanford Site. A significant portion of the waste will be converted into low-activity waste (LAW) glass with a conventional Joule-heated ceramic melter. In addition, three supplemental treatment processes are presently under consideration by the DOE to treat wastes in selected tanks with the goal of accelerating the overall cleanup mission at the Hanford site. These are: 1) bulk vitrification (BV), 2) cementation or the cast stone (CS) process, and 3) steam reformation (SR). The DOE is expected to select by October 2003 one or more of these supplemental treatment technologies for more detailed evaluation. As part of the selection process, a preliminary risk assessment is being performed to evaluate the impacts of the disposal facility on public health and environmental resources.The same computational framework used to conduct the 2001 ILAW performance assessment will be used for all three waste forms. Cast stone will be modeled with a diffusion-advection transport model and bulk vitrified glass and steam reformed LAW will be modeled with a reactive chemical transport simulator. Modeling waste form performance requires the determination of a number of wasteform specific input parameters. The required input parameters for BV and SR waste forms are derived from a mechanistic model that describes the effect of solution chemistry on contaminant release rates. The single-pass flow-through test is the principal method used to obtain these input parameters, supplemented by product consistency test measurements and physical property measurements. The diffusiveadvective transport model for cast stone requires measurements of effective diffusion coefficients and hydraulic properties.

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“…Bulk vitrification [AMEC Earth & Environmental, Inc. (AMEC)] is a modification of the in-situ vitrification (ISV) process developed for remediation of buried wastes and contaminant plumes in soil (Luey and Seiler 1995;Tixier 1991). An in-container vitrification (ICV) process has been designed in which low-activity waste, soil, and glass-forming chemicals are mixed, dried, and then melted at approximately 1500°C by electrical resistance (Kim et al 2003).…”

Section: Bulk Vitrification Soluble Fractionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Laboratory Testing of Bulk Vitrified Low-Activity Waste Forms to Support the 2005 Integrated Disposal Facility Performance Assessment

Pierce¹,

McGrail²,

Bagaasen³

et al. 2005

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SummaryThe Hanford Site in southeastern Washington State has been used extensively to produce nuclear materials for the U. S. strategic defense arsenal by the U. S. Department of Energy (DOE). A large inventory of radioactive and mixed waste has accumulated in 177 single-and double-shell tanks. Waste recovered from the tanks will be pre-treated to separate the low-activity fraction from the high-level and transuranic wastes. The low-activity fraction will be among the largest volumes of radioactive waste within the DOE complex and is one of the largest inventories of long-lived radionuclides planned for disposal in a low-level waste facility. Currently, the DOE Office of River Protection (ORP) is evaluating several options for immobilization of low-activity tank wastes for eventual disposal in a shallow subsurface facility at the Hanford Site. A significant portion of the waste will be converted into immobilized low-activity waste (ILAW) glass with a conventional Joule-heated ceramic melter. In addition to ILAW glass, DOE is considering a supplemental treatment technology; bulk vitrification (BV), to treat a portion of the low-activity waste (LAW). The use of a supplemental treatment technology is expected to accelerate the overall cleanup mission at the Hanford site by at least 35 years. CH2M Hill Hanford Group, Inc. A critical component of the development and testing strategy will be to provide estimates of radionuclide release rates from the engineered portion of the disposal facilities (source term). These data will be used for Subsurface Transport Over Reactive Multi-phases (STORM) simulations of the BV waste package. Documented in this report are data related to 1) kinetic rate law parameters for glass and refractory dissolution, 2) sodium (Na + )-hydrogen (H + ) ion exchange rate, 3) chemical reaction network of secondary phases that form in accelerated weathering tests, and 4) thermodynamic equilibrium constants assigned to these secondary phases for BV vitrified product. The kinetic rate law and Na + -H + ion exchange rate were determined from single-pass flow-through (SPFT) experiments. Product consistency (PCT) tests were used for accelerated weathering or aging of the glasses to determine a chemical reaction network of secondary phases that form. The majority of the thermodynamic data used in this data package were extracted from the thermodynamic database package provided with the geochemical code EQ3/6, version 8.0.Results from SPFT tests suggest that rate law parameters derived for BV glasses are comparable to those determined for WTP glass formulations. SPFT tests also were used to calculate a bounding release rate for the mullite castable refractory block (CRB). The presence of multiple mineral phases in and the uncertainty regarding the true reactive surface area of the CRB may have a significant effect on the reported rates. Therefore, we recommend that rate law parameters be developed for the pure mineral phases identified in the CRB. These results should be combined with literature values to...

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Application of in situ vitrification in the soil subsurface: Engineering-scale testing

Cited by 6 publications

References 0 publications

Laboratory Testing of Bulk Vitrified and Steam Reformed Low-Activity Waste Forms to Support A Preliminary Risk Assessment for an Integrated Disposal Facility

Laboratory Testing of Bulk Vitrified and Steam Reformed Low-Activity Waste Forms to Support A Preliminary Risk Assessment for an Integrated Disposal Facility

A Strategy to Assess Performance of Selected Low-Activity Waste Forms in an Integrated Disposal Facility

Laboratory Testing of Bulk Vitrified Low-Activity Waste Forms to Support the 2005 Integrated Disposal Facility Performance Assessment

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