Review of high-level waste form properties

This report is a review of waste form options for the immobilization of high-level-liquid wastes from the nuclear fuel cycle. This review covers the status of international research and development on waste forms as of May 1979. Although the emphasis in this report is on waste form properties, process parameters are discussed where they may affect final waste form properties. A summary table is provided listing properties of various nuclear waste form options. It is concluded that proposed waste forms have properties falling within a relatively narrow range. In regard to crystalline versus glass waste forms, the conclusion is that either glass of crystalline materials can be shown to have some advantage when a single property is considered; however, at this date no single waste form offers optimum properties over the entire range of characteristics investigated. A long-term effort has been applied to the development of glass and calcine waste forms. Several additional waste forms have enough promise to warrant continued research and development to bring their state of development up to that of glass and calcine. Synthetic minerals, the multibarrier approach with coated particles in a metal matrix, and high pressure-high temperature ceramics offer potential advantages and need further study. Although this report discusses waste form properties, the total waste management system should be considered in the final selection of a waste form option. Canister design, canister materials, overpacks, engineered barriers, and repository characteristics, as well as the waste form, affect the overall performance of a waste management system. These parameters were not considered in this comparison