Sediment and process water characterization in support of 300 Area North Process Pond physical soil washing test

摘要

The sediments in the 300 Area North Process Pond are being considered for clean-up using soil washing processes. Prior to site clean-up several preliminary pilot-scale physical washing campaigns were performed by Westinghouse Hanford Company (WHC) staff in the summer of 1993. WHC used equipment that was obtained from the US Environmental Protection Agency. Specific details are found in the 300-FF-1 Physical Separations CERCLA Treatability Test Plan. Physical soil washing includes separation and proper containment of the contaminant-rich fines and residual liquid effluent and release of the coarse ''clean'' fraction, should it meet minimum performance levels for residual contaminant concentration to the site being cleaned. A goal of the demonstration is to concentrate the contaminants into (le)10% of the soil volume excavated and, therefore, to release (ge)90% of the soil back to the site as clean soil. To support interpretation of the WHC soil washing treatability study, PNL performed some sediment and process water characterization on samples taken during three major and one small campaign. This report documents particle-size distributions in various field washed piles, and chemical and gama emitting radionuclide contents as a function of particle-size distribution for the field washed sediments and contents in the spent process water. All of the particle fractions were separated by wet sieving, but two field samples were also subjected to dry sieving and attrition scrubbing followed by wet sieving.