INOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY FOR THE REMEDIATION OF TRITIUM AT LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY

摘要

The high-pressure tritium laboratory (HPTL) is located at Technical Area (TA) 33, building 86, in the far southeast corner of the laboratory property. It is immediately adjacent to Bandelier National Park. Because it was threatened by both the Cerro Grande fire in 2000 and the 16,000-acre dome fire in 1996, the former tritium processing facility was placed on the list of facilities scheduled for decontamination and decommissioning under the Cerro Claude Rehabilitation Project. The work was performed through the facilities and waste operations (FWO) division and is integrated with other laboratory decontamination and decommissioning efforts. Although the 47-year-old facility had been in a state of safe shutdown since operations ceased in 1990, a significant amount of tritium remained in the rooms where process systems were located. Tritium was the only radiological contaminant associated with this facility. Since no specific regulatory standards have been set for the release of volumetrically contaminated materials, concentration guidelines were derived in order to meet other established regulatory criteria. A tritium removal system was developed for this project with the goal of reducing the amount of tritium concentrated in the concrete of the building. The derived concentration guidelines, combined with the tritium removal system that was developed for this project, provided significant time savings for decontamination as well as an overall cost savings for waste disposal.