Caustic Recycle from Hanford Tank Waste Using NaSICON Ceramic Membrane Salt Splitting Process

A family of inorganic ceramic materials, called sodium (Na) Super Ion Conductors (NaSICON), has been studied at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) to investigate their ability to separate sodium from radioactively contaminated sodium salt solutions for treating U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) tank wastes. Ceramatec Inc. developed and fabricated a membrane containing a proprietary NAS-GY material formulation that was electrochemically tested in a bench-scale apparatus with both a simulant and a radioactive tank-waste solution to determine the membrane performance when removing sodium from DOE tank wastes. Implementing this sodium separation process can result in significant cost savings by reducing the disposal volume of low-activity wastes and by producing a NaOH feedstock product for recycle into waste treatment processes such as sludge leaching, regenerating ion exchange resins, inhibiting corrosion in carbon-steel tanks, or retrieving tank wastes