Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-g7rbq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-26T21:15:31.676Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Up Close: Immobilization of High-Level Nuclear Waste at the Savannah River Plant

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2013

M.J. Plodinec
M.J. Plodinec*
Affiliation:
E.I. Dupont de Nemours and Company, Savannah River Laboratory, Aiken, South Carolina 29808, Telephone (803) 450-6211
Get access

Extract

At the Savannah River Plant (SRP), construction of what will be the world's largest solidification facility for nuclear waste has been under way since 1983. Beginning in 1990, the nearly 100 million liters of liquid high-level nuclear waste now stored on the site will be made into a durable borosilicate glass in this Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF).

In developing a slurry-fed melting process for the DWPF, we made advances in understanding both glass processing and glass durability. This article focuses on what we learned and what further advances are likely to be made.

Generally speaking, the goal of any glass technologist is to make a good glass and to make it well. In the glass industry a good product is whatever people will buy. To make it well means, above all, to make the product as economically as possible. Thus, the commercial glass technologist will control the composition of the melter feed material very closely to ensure that only the components necessary for glass performance are included, and in the least expensive form possible. The commercial glass technologist may also tolerate low yields or specify several stages of post-melt processing if it is necessary to produce a product to demanding specifications.

To the nuclear waste glass technologist, however, a good product is one which will be stable in geologic environments for millions of years.

Type
Special Features
Information
MRS Bulletin , Volume 12 , Issue 5 , August 1987 , pp. 61 - 65
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1987

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1.Maher, R., Shafranek, L.F., Kelley, J.A., and Zeyfang, R.W., American Nuclear Society Trans. 39 (1981) p. 228.Google Scholar
2.Boersma, M.D., American Nuclear Society—Fuel Reprocessing and Waste Management Proceedings 1 (1984) p. 131.Google Scholar
3.Baxter, R.G., Maher, R., Mellen, J.B., Shafranek, L.F., and Stevens, W.R. III, Waste Management '84 1 (1984) p. 275.Google Scholar
4.Baxter, R.G., Waste Management '86 2 (1986) p. 449.Google Scholar
5.Jantzen, C.M., J. Non-Cryst. Solids 84 (1986) p. 215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6.Plodinec, M.J., J. Non-Cryst. Solids 84 (1986), p. 206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
7.Dunson, J.B., Eisenberg, A.M., Schuyler, R.L., Haight, H.G., Mello, V.E., Gould, T.H., Butler, J.L., and Pickett, J.B., USDOE Report DP-1625, E.I. DuPont de Nemours, Inc., Aiken, SC (1982).Google Scholar
8.Plodinec, M.J., USDOE Report DP-MS-80-50, E.I. DuPont de Nemours, Inc., Aiken, SC (1981).Google Scholar
9.Soper, P.D., Walker, D.D., Plodinec, M.J., Roberts, G.J., and Lightner, L.F., Bull. Am. Ceram. Soc. 62 (1983) p. 1013.Google Scholar
10.Rankin, W.N., Advances in Ceramics 8 (Am. Ceram. Soc., Columbus, OH, 1984) p. 559.Google Scholar
11.Iverson, D.C. and Bickford, D.F., in Scientific Basis for Nuclear Waste Management VIII, edited by Jantzen, C.M., Stone, J.A., and Ewing, R.C. (Mater. Res. Soc. Proc. 44, Pittsburgh, PA, 1985) p. 839.Google Scholar
12.Plodinec, M.J., USDOE Report DP-1517, E.I. DuPont de Nemours, Inc., Aiken, SC (1979).Google Scholar
13.Plodinec, M.J., in Scientific Basis for Nuclear Waste Management I, edited by McCarthy, G.J. (Mater. Res. Soc. Proc. 1, Plenum, New York, 1979) p. 31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
14.Plodinec, M.J., Scientific Basis for Nuclear Waste Management II, edited by Northrup, C.J.M. (Mater. Res. Soc. Proc. 2, Plenum, New York, 1980) p. 223.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
15.Plodinec, M.J., Proc. Electrochem. Soc. 81-82 (1981) p. 1072.Google Scholar
16.Schreiber, H.D., J. Non-Cryst. Solids 84 (1986) p. 129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
17.Allen, T.L., Iverson, D.C., and Plodinec, M.J., USDOE Report DP-1676, E.I. DuPont de Nemours, Inc., Aiken, SC (1985).Google Scholar
18.Plodinec, M.J., Jantzen, C.M., and Wicks, G.G., Advances in Ceramics 8 (Am. Ceram. Soc., Columbus, OH, 1984) p. 491.Google Scholar
19.Jantzen, C.M. and Plodinec, M.J., J. Non-Cryst. Solids 67 (1984) p. 207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
20.Lodding, A.R., Engström, E.U., Clark, D.E., Werme, L.O., and Wicks, G.G., Advances in Ceramics 20 (Am. Ceram. Soc., Columbus, OH, 1987) p. 567.Google Scholar
21.Grambow, B., Scientific Basis for Nuclear Waste Management VIII, edited by Jantzen, C.M., Stone, J.A., and Ewing, R.C. (Mater. Res. Soc. Proc. 44, Pittsburgh, PA, 1985) p. 15.Google Scholar
22.Pantano, C.G., Clark, A.E., and Hench, L.L., J. Am. Ceram. Soc. 57 (1974) p. 412.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
23.Clark, D.E. and Hench, L.L., Nucl. and Chem. Waste Management 2 (1981) p. 93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
24.Zhu, D.F., Clark, D.E., Hench, L.L., Wicks, G.G., and Werme, L.O., in Scientific Basis for Nuclear Waste Management VIII, edited by Jantzen, C.M., Stone, J.A., and Ewing, R.C. (Mater. Res. Soc. Proc. 44, Pittsburgh, PA, 1985) p. 37, 187.Google Scholar
25.Barkatt, Aa., Macedo, P.B., Sousanpour, W., Barkatt, Al., Boroomand, M.A., Fisher, C.F., Shirron, J.J., Szoke, P., and Rogers, V.L., Nucl. and Chem. Waste Management 4 (1983) p. 153.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
26.Barkatt, A., Gibson, B.C., and Brandys, M., in Scientific Basis for Nuclear Waste Management VIII, edited by Jantzen, C.M., Stone, J.A., and Ewing, R.C. (Mater. Res. Soc. Proc. 44, Pittsburgh, PA, 1985) p. 229.Google Scholar
27.Jantzen, C.M., in Scientific Basis for Nuclear Waste Management VII, edited by McVay, G.L. (Mater. Res. Soc. Proc. 26, North-Holland, NY, 1984) p. 613.Google Scholar
28.Bibler, N.E., Wicks, G.G., and Oversby, V.M., in Scientific Basis for Nuclear Waste Management VIII, edited by Jantzen, C.M., Stone, J.A., and Ewing, R.C. (Mater. Res. Soc. Proc. 44, Pittsburgh, PA, 1985) p. 247.Google Scholar
29.Jantzen, C.M. and Wicks, G.G., in Scientific Basis for Nuclear Waste Management VIII, edited by Jantzen, C.M., Stone, J.A., and Ewing, R.C. (Mater. Res. Soc. Proc. 44, Pittsburgh, PA, 1985) p. 29.Google Scholar
30.Bickford, D.F., Diemer, R.B. Jr., and Iverson, D.C., J. Non-Cryst. Solids 84 (1986) p. 276.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
31.Wicks, G.G., Stone, J.A., Chandler, G.T., and Williams, S., USDOE Report DP-1728, E. I. DuPont de Nemours, Inc., Aiken, SC (1986).Google Scholar
32.Plodinec, M.J., Waste Management '85 2 (1985) p. 441.Google Scholar
33.Bibler, N.E. and Jantzen, C.M., in Scientific Basis for Nuclear Waste Management X, edited by Bates, J.K. and Seefeldt, W.B. (Mater. Res. Soc. Proc. 84, Pittsburgh, PA, 1987) p. 47.Google Scholar
34.Wicks, G.G., Weinle, M.E., and Molecke, M.A., USDOE Report DP-1733, E.I. DuPont de Nemours, Inc., Aiken, SC (1987).Google Scholar
35.Jantzen, C.M., Advances in Ceramics 20 (Am. Ceram. Soc., Columbus, OH, 1987) p. 703.Google Scholar