Research and development activities in support of Hanford River protection project privatization -- SRTC program

A team led by BNFL was awarded the contract to remediate and immobilize the Hanford radioactive tank waste in support of the Hanford River Protection Program. BNFL and team members will develop and design integrated facilities for pretreatment and vitrification in support of this program. This facility will pretreat and immobilize approximately 0.375 MT/day of high level waste and approximately 4.5 MT/day of low activity waste. As part of the overall project, BNFL has contracted Savannah River Technology Center (SRTC) to provide research and development services in characterization, pretreatment, and immobilization of actual Hanford tank wastes. SRTC is conducting tests, radioactive and non-radioactive, to confirm all major processing steps for the pretreatment flowsheet. During this testing, SRTC has identified and developed alternate or additional processing steps to address significant processing concerns. Additionally, SRTC is developing design basis data using simulants of Hanford tank wastes in areas of ion exchange, filtration, precipitation, glass former blending, evaporation, and slurry mixing. This paper will provide an overview of SRTC activities completed during the initial phase of the project, flowsheet modifications resulting from SRTC's identification and development of alternate or modified processing steps, as well as a description of the SRTC development program for the next phase of the project