Recycle of radiologically contaminated austenitic stainless steels

The United States Department of Energy owns large quantities of radiologically contaminated austenitic stainless steel which could by recycled for reuse if appropriate release standards were in place. Unfortunately, current policy places the formulation of a release standard for USA industry years, if not decades, away. The Westinghouse Savannah River Company, Idaho National Engineering Laboratory and various university and industrial partners are participating in initiative to recycle previously contaminated austenitic stainless steels into containers for the storage and disposal of radioactive wastes. This paper describes laboratory scale experiments which demonstrated the decontamination and remelt of stainless steel which had been contaminated with radionuclides