Tank waste remediation system milestone report magnetic separation of tank waste: Surrogate system separations report

摘要

High-level radioactive waste (HLW) has been stored in large underground storage tanks (UST) at the US Department of Energy's Hanford Site since 1944. More than 253,000 m(sup 3) of waste have been accumulated in 177 tanks. The waste consists of many different chemicals and are in the form of liquids, slurries, salt cakes and sludges. A magnetic separation effort at Los Alamos National Laboratory is funded through the Tank Waste Remediation System (TWRS) to explore the use of high-gradient magnetic separation (HGMS) for tank waste segregation. The concept is to concentrate into a low volume waste stream, all or most of the magnetic components, which include actinide compounds, most of the fission products and precious metals. As a first step in this process investigations were made on surrogate systems. This milestone report discusses the HGMS results on these systems.