Characterization of Radioactive Macrobatch Four Glass being Produced by the Defense Waste Processing Facility at the Savannah River Site

At the Savannah River Site (SRS) the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) has been immobilizing SRS's radioactive high-level waste (HLW) sludge into a borosilicate glass for approximately nine years. Currently the DWPF is immobilizing HLW sludge in Macrobatch 4 (MB4). Each macrobatch is nominally five hundred thousand gallons of HLW and produces nominally five hundred stainless steel canisters two feet in diameter ten feet tall filled with the borosilicate glass. This paper presents results of the characterization of a sample of MB4 glass taken directly from the pour stream of the DWPF melter during the filling of the canister S02312. This canister was the 275th canister filled during immobilizing MB4. The purpose of the sample was to confirm that the leachability of the glass in a standard ASTM test was less than the leachability criterion set forth in the Waste Acceptance Product Specifications (WAPS) for vitrified waste forms for permanent disposal in a Federal geologic repository. The sample was sent to the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) for characterization.