Grout Testing for the Solidification of Savannah River and Oak Ridge National laboratory Wastestreams
MSE's Task: Evaluate grouts using various mixing and addition methods to solidify radioactive aqueous liquid wastestreams using surrotage wastestreams.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has identified a low level legacy sludge for grout testing. The ORNL legacy sludge slurry is stored at the Melton valley storage tanks and has been collected for the past 20 years from all the ORNL operations that produce low level waste (LLW), including the Radiochemical Engineering Development Center. This legacy waste is a priority and must be disposed of before ORNL can close the older tanks. Originally, the waste was going to be concentrated and dired by evaporation and disposed of at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in new Mexico as a transuranic waste. But if the waste slurry can be solidified without concentration using a grout material, the transuranic levels would be velow the 100 nanocuries per gram level and the wasteform could be disposed of at the Nevada Test Site as a LLW. This could save the Department of Energy about $100,000,000.
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