Monsanto Mound Laboratory tritium waste control technology development program

Over the past four years, implementation of tritium waste control programs has resulted in a 30-fold reduction in the gaseous tritium effluents from Mound Laboratory. However, to reduce tritium waste levels to the ''as low as practicable'' guideline poses problems that are beyond ready solution with state-of-the-art tritium control technology. To meet this advanced technology need, a tritium waste control technology program was initiated. Although the initial thrust of the work under this program was oriented toward development of gaseous effluent treatment systems, its natural evolution has been toward the liquid waste problem. It is thought that, of all the possible approaches to disposal of tritiated liquid wastes, recovery offers the greatest advantages. End products of the recovery processes would be water detritiated to a level below the Radioactivity Concentration Guide (RCG) or detritiated to a level that would permit safe recycle in a closed loop operation and enriched tritium. The detritiated water effluent could be either recycled in a closed loop operation such as in a fuel reprocessing plant or safely released to the biosphere, and the recovered tritium could be recycled for use in fusion reactor studies or other applications