Washing and alkaline leaching of Hanford tank sludges: A status report

Because of the assumed high cost of high-level waste (HLW) immobilization and disposal, pretreatment methods are being developed to minimize the volume of HLW requiring vitrification. Pacific Northwest Laboratory (PNL) is investigating several options for pretreating the radioactive wastes stored in underground tanks at the Hanford Site. The pretreatment methods under study for the tank sludges include: (1) simply washing the sludges with dilute NaOH, (2) performing caustic leaching (as well as washing) to remove certain wash components, and (3) dissolving the sludges in acid and extracting key radionuclides from the dissolved sludge solutions. The data collected in this effort will be used to support the March 1998 decision on the extent of pretreatment to be performed on the Hanford tank sludges. This document describes sludge washing and caustic leaching tests conducted in FY 1994. These tests were performed using sludges from single-shell tanks (SST) B-201 and U-110. A summary is given of all the sludge washing and caustic leaching studies conducted at PNL in the last few years