Recommended Standard Materials for Evaluation of Dry Sludge Energetic Reactions

摘要

The Savannah River Site stores High Level Waste (HLW) in several forms in the underground carbon steel tanks. One of those forms, referred to as sludge, consists primarily of insoluble iron and aluminum oxides and hydroxides with smaller amounts of uranium, manganese, mercury and nickel and traces of various radionuclides. Trace amounts of silver compounds also exist in the tank farm from transfers in the late 1960s of silver Berl saddles used as part of the canyon process. Ordinarily, an aqueous supernate layer remains over the top of the sludge. A previous study indicated that when sludge remains in a wet state, little concern exists for any energetic decomposition (1). However, recent operations of sludge tanks allowed the supernatant layer to evaporate. A concern exists that certain mercury and silver compounds and mixtures of organics and nitrates, capable of energetic decomposition, may form or react in the dry sludge. High Level Waste Division requested the assistance of the Savannah River Technology Center in determining the likelihood for the energetic decomposition during sampling of the dry sludge (2). This document identifies compounds for use as standards in the evaluation of dry sludge energetic reactions.