Electrometallurgical Techniques for DOE Spent Fuel Treatment Status Report on Argonne National Laboratory's R & D Activity as of Fall 1998 (1999) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
C ANL Monthly Highlights of the Electrometallurgical Treatment Program
C ANL Monthly Highlights of the Electrometallurgical Treatment Program
Pages 35-60
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 35... ...
The technical highlights provide an overall picture of the program. WBS 1.0 Treatment Operations Electrometallurgical treatment technology will convert the highly enriched uranium and the reactive bond sodium in EBR-II fuel into low enriched uranium product, ceramic waste and metal waste.
|
From page 36... ...
WBS 5.0 Metal Waste Treatment Development The noble metal fission products and undissolved cladding hulls are immobilized into a stainless steelzirconium alloy for geologic repository disposal. In support of waste qualification activities, small samples of the metal waste are being produced so they can be characterized to establish the performance.
|
From page 37... ...
The properties of the stainless steel-20 wt % zirconium alloy are very similar to the reference composition: stainless steel-15 wt % zirconium. WBS 7.0 Ceramic Waste Treatment Development The electrolyte salt is periodically removed from the electrorefiner and passed through a waste treatment system to immobilize fission products and transuranium elements for disposal.
|
From page 38... ...
The goal of this task is to evaluate the applicability of standard durability tests for qualification of the ceramic waste form for disposition in a high-level waste repository and to provide ceramic waste form behavior testing and associated activities in support of its qualification. A report on ceramic waste form testing methods was completed on schedule and distributed to comply with project milestones outlined in section 11.2 of the Work Breakdown Structure for the EBR-II spent fuel demonstration project.
|
From page 39... ...
The technical highlights provide an overall picture of the program. WBS 1.0 Treatment Operations Electrometallurgical treatment technology will convert highly enriched uranium and the reactive bond sodium in the EBR-II fuel into low enriched uranium product, ceramic waste and metal waste.
|
From page 40... ...
was completed and the equipment was returned to the engineering laboratory to support ceramic waste process qualification activities. WBS 3.0 Treatment Process Development The key step in electrometallurgical treatment of spent nuclear fuel is electrorefining to separate pure uranium from the spent fuel, thus reducing the volume of high level waste.
|
From page 41... ...
WBS 5.0 Metal Waste Treatment Development The noble metal fission products and undissolved cladding hulls are immobilized into a stainless steelzirconium alloy for geologic repository disposal. In support of waste qualification activities, small samples of the metal waste are being produced so they can be characterized to establish the performance.
|
From page 42... ...
The necessary processes, materials and demonstration equipment are being developed and tested so these waste treatment processes can be demonstrated in the HFEF with salts from the Mk-IV electrorefiner. The ceramic waste form resulting from electrometallurgical treatment of spent nuclear fuels incorporates the chloride salt, most of the fission products, and the transuranic elements.
|
From page 43... ...
Initial results from short-term MCC- 1 tests with uranium-containing ceramic waste form samples indicate that the uranium does not adversely affect the short-term corrosion behavior of the waste form. Analysis of the unreacted uranium-containing samples with scanning electron microscopy and electron dispersive spectroscopy indicated that the uranium tends to behave similarly to the rare-earth elements and is often distributed in rare-earth phases.
|
From page 44... ...
WBS 1.0 Treatment Operations Electrometallurgical treatment technology will convert the highly enriched uranium and the reactive bond sodium in EBR-II fuel into low enriched uranium product, ceramic waste and metal waste. This work element involves the demonstration equipment operations in the Fuel Conditioning Facility (FCF)
|
From page 45... ...
WBS 5.0 Metal Waste Treatment Development The noble metal fission products and undissolved cladding hulls are immobilized into a stainless steelzirconium alloy for geologic repository disposal. In support of waste qualification activities, small samples 45
|
From page 46... ...
The necessary processes, materials and demonstration equipment are being developed and tested so these waste treatment processes can be demonstrated in the HFEF with salts from the Mk-IV electrorefiner. The ceramic waste form resulting from electrometallurgical treatment of spent nuclear fuels incorporates the chloride salt, most of the fission products, and the transuranic elements.
|
From page 47... ...
The results from solution exchange tests with demineralized water, reported in a previous monthly report, indicated that radionuclides are retained in the pure zeolite and in the ceramic waste form to a greater degree than cations like Li, K, and Na, during exposure to low ionic strength solutions. Results from solution exchange tests with candidate ceramic waste forms with zeolite SA and tests with the constituent materials alone were done to determine the corrosion behavior of each component in a Mg-Na-K-Cl brine.
|
From page 48... ...
WBS 1.0 Treatment Operations Electrometallurgical treatment technology will convert the highly enriched uranium and the reactive bond sodium in EBR-II fuel into low enriched uranium product, ceramic waste and metal waste. This work element involves the demonstration equipment operations in the Fuel Conditioning Facility (FCF)
|
From page 49... ...
In support of waste qualification activities, the metal waste ingots were sampled by core-drilling. WBS 1.4 Ceramic Waste Operation with Irradiated Materials After 100 driver assemblies are treated in the Mk-IV electrorefiner, a portion of the salt will be transferred to the HFEF where the salt and fission products will be immobilized in ceramic waste samples.
|
From page 50... ...
The necessary processes, materials and demonstration equipment are being developed and tested so these waste treatment processes can be demonstrated in the HFEF with salts from the Mk-IV electrorefiner. The ceramic waste form resulting from electrometallurgical treatment of spent nuclear fuels incorporates the chloride salt, most of the fission products, and the transuranic elements.
|
From page 51... ...
The goal of this task is to evaluate the applicability of standard durability tests for qualification of the ceramic waste form for disposition in a high-level waste repository and to provide ceramic waste form behavior testing. Solution exchange corrosion tests were performed with the ceramic waste form and with its potential base constituents of glass, zeolite SA, and sodalite.
|
From page 52... ...
To determine the effects that vessels made with different materials may have on the corrosion tests, 14 tests were performed that followed the product consistency tests procedure A (PCT-A) with reference ceramic waste form samples and Teflon, Type 304 stainless steel, and titanium vessels.
|
From page 53... ...
The technical highlights provide an overall picture of the program. WBS 1.0 Treatment Operations Electrometallurgical treatment technology will convert the highly enriched uranium and the reactive bond sodium in EBR-II fuel into low enriched uranium product, ceramic waste and metal waste.
|
From page 54... ...
WBS 1.4 Ceramic Waste Operation with Irradiated Materials After 100 driver assemblies are treated in the Mk-IV electrorefiner, a portion of the salt will be transferred to the HFEF where the salt and fission products will be immobilized in ceramic waste samples. This activity was originally scheduled to begin in February 1999; however, the process development testing (WBS 7.0)
|
From page 55... ...
the potential for reducing the processing time of a cathode. WBS 3.0 Treatment Process Development The key step in electrometallurgical treatment of spent nuclear fuel is electrorefining to separate pure uranium from the spent fuel, thus reducing the volume of high level waste.
|
From page 56... ...
Based on these results, procedures are recommended for determining if measured and calculated values are consistent. WBS 5.0 Metal Waste Treatment Development The noble metal fission products and undissolved cladding hulls are immobilized into a stainless steelzirconium alloy for geologic repository disposal.
|
From page 57... ...
The ceramic waste form that results from electrometallurgical treatment of spent nuclear fuel incorporates the chloride salt, most of the fission products, and the transuranic elements into a glass-bonded sodalite composite ceramic. A series of ceramic waste form samples is being fabricated to test the effect of zeolite and glass frit particle size distributions on the waste form integrity and durability.
|
From page 58... ...
(It is possible that less salt is occluded when glass is not present.) In addition, we are planning to examine HIPed sodalite and the reference ceramic waste form with scanning electron microscopy to determine if porosities and exposed surface areas can account for the differences.
|
From page 59... ...
The document, "Status Report on Metal Waste Form Release Rate Modeling," was issued, satisfying WBS DOE 901220 milestone. The report "Radionuclide Release Modeling of the ANL Ceramic Waste Form" to satisfy DOE 901200 milestone is undergoing final project review.
|
From page 60... ...
Treatment of Aluminum-Based Fuels: Demonstration of the feasibility of electrometallurgical treatment of aluminum alloy spent fuels, such as foreign and domestic research reactor fuels, has been done in laboratory-scale experiments. The key step in treatment of this fuel is electrorefining of the aluminum, which represents about 90% of the spent fuel volume, and which can, after electrorefining, be discarded as low-level waste.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.