TRUEX processing of wastes for waste minimization and reagent recycle

The TRUEX (transuranic extraction) process is a solvent extraction process specifically developed to remove, separate, and concentrate actinide elements from nitric acid media. The major application of the TRUEX process is likely to be removal of transuranic (TRU) elements from dissolved sludge waste at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Hanford site near Richland, Washington; this sludge was generated during the neutralization of acidic raffinates from the production and purification of plutonium for defense purposes. Other applications of the TRUEX process can be found at other DOE sites: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Rocky Flats Plant (RFP), Boulder, Colorado; Idaho Chemical Processing Plant, Idaho Falls, Idaho; and Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico. This paper focuses on work performed at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) to demonstrate the TRUEX process on TRU-containing analytical-residue solutions generated at ANL and the New Brunswick Laboratory. Also discussed are TRUEX flow sheets designed by ANL for wastes specific to RFP and ORNL