Ss. Fu et al., CHARACTERIZATION OF LOW-LEVEL MIXED WASTE SLUDGES - IDENTIFYING AND CONTROLLING SOURCES OF VARIABILITY, Journal of nuclear materials, 245(1), 1997, pp. 79-85
Citations number
5
Categorie Soggetti
Nuclear Sciences & Tecnology","Mining & Mineral Processing","Material Science
Over the course of several years, we have examined the viability of tr
eating low-level mixed wastes from several US Department of Energy (DO
E) sites by vitrification. In particular, extensive studies have been
performed on actual low-level mixed wastes from the Fernald site in Oh
io. We have shown that it is possible to produce durable glasses (pass
the US EPA TCLP test and perform comparably to high-level waste glass
es on the PCT test) with waste loadings of 80-98%. The results of thes
e vitrification studies have been used to up-scale from laboratory sca
le melters to a demonstration-scale melter operating at the Fernald si
te with a nominal glass production rate of 300 kg/day. This paper focu
ses on the difficulties that we have encountered in characterizing and
working with actual waste sludges and the solutions that we have deve
loped.