A NEW WASTE MINIMIZATION METHOD FOR THE DETERMINATION OF TOTAL NONHALOGENATED VOLATILE ORGANIC-COMPOUNDS IN TRU WASTES

As part of the technical support CST-12 provides for a:wide variety of defense and nondefense programs within Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and the Department of Energy (DOE) complex, new waste minimiza tion technique is under development for radiological volatile organic analysis (Hot VOA). Currently all Hot VOA must be run in a glovebox. S everal types of samples contain TRU radiological waste in the form of particulates. By prefiltering the samples through a 1.2 micron syringe and counting the radioactivity it has been found that many of the sam ples can be analyzed outside of a glovebox. In the present investigati on, the types of Hot VOA samples that can take advantage of this new t echnique, the volume and types of waste reduced and the experimental p arameters will he discussed. Overall the radioactive waste generated i s minimized.