Melting behaviour of simulated radioactive waste as functions of different redox iron-bearing raw materials

0562746 - ÚSMH 2023 RIV NL eng J - Journal Article
Rigby, J.C. - Dixon, D.R. - Cutforth, D.A. - Marcial, J. - Kloužek, Jaroslav - Pokorný, Richard - Kruger, A.A. - Scrimshire, A. - Bell, A.M. T. - Bingham, P.A.
Melting behaviour of simulated radioactive waste as functions of different redox iron-bearing raw materials.
Journal of Nuclear Materials. Roč. 569, OCT (2022), č. článku 153946. ISSN 0022-3115. E-ISSN 1873-4820
Institutional support: RVO:67985891
Keywords : complex feed compositions * borosilicate glasses * melter feed * cold cap * Mossbauer spectroscopy * electric melter * nuclear * Raman * conversion * oxygen
OECD category: Ceramics
Impact factor: 3.1, year: 2022
Method of publishing: Open access
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022311522004329

Improved understanding of the mechanisms by which foaming occurs during vitrification of high-level radioactive waste feeds prior to operation of the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant at the Hanford Site, USA, will help to obviate operational issues and reduce the duration of the clean-up project by enhancing the feed-to-glass conversion. The HLW-NG-Fe2 high-iron simulated waste feed has been shown to exhibit excessive foaming, and the most recent predictive models overestimate the feed melting rate. The influence of delivering iron as a Fe2+-bearing raw material (FeC2O4 center dot 2H(2)O), rather than a Fe3+ (Fe(OH)(3)) material, was evaluated in terms of the effects on foaming during melting, to improve understanding of the mechanisms of foam production. A decrease of 50.0 +/- 10.8% maximum generated foam volume is observed using FeC2O4 center dot 2H(2)O as the iron source, compared with Fe(OH)(3). This is determined to be due to a large release of CO2 before the foam onset temperature (the temperature above which the liquid phases forming are sufficiently viscous to trap the gases) and suppression of O-2 evolution during foam collapse. Structural analyses of simulated waste feeds after different stages of melting show that the remaining Fe2+ in the modified feed is oxidised to Fe3+ at temperatures between 600 and 800 degrees C. This feed was tested in a Laboratory Scale Melter with no excessive foaming or feeding issues. Analysis of the final glass products indicates that the glasses produced using the original HLW-NG-Fe-2 feed using Fe(OH)(3) and the feed made with FeC2O4 center dot 2H(2)O are structurally similar but not identical: the difference in the structure converges when the glass is melted for 24 h, suggesting a transient structure slightly different to that of the baseline in the glass produced using the reduced raw material. (c) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0341166