Feasibility studies for decontamination and densification of chop-leach cladding residues

Abstract

The p r o p e r t i e s o f t h e chop-leach c l a d d i n g h u l l waste stream i s reviewed w i t h r e s p e c t t o aqueous, molten s a l t , and mol t e n metal decontamination. The removal o f t r a n s u r a n i c contamin a t i o n and d e n s i f i c a t i o n o f t h e waste stream by m e l t i n g appear f e a s i b l e b u t t e c h n i c a l l y d i f f i c u l t t o produce an acceptable product w i t h o n l y a small i n c r e a s e i n t h e mass o f t h e t o t a l waste stream. Research i s i n d i c a t e d t o develop a process u t i l i z i n g a gaseous f i l m a1 t e r a t i o n , aqueous f i l m removal and e t c h i n g , and f l u x e x t r a c t i o n o f t h e molten metal. ABSTRACT.

Cladding hull decontamination process: preliminary development studies

“…Irradiation of these impurities give rise to transuranic elements uniformly distributed in the Zircaloy. Calculation of the expected quantities by the ORIGEN (Bell 1973) computer code was conducted (Griggs 1974) for a hypothetical fuel clad with Zircaloy containing 1 ppm uranium impurity and a standard (33 MWD/Kg) exposure. than 10 rlCi/g of transuranic elements would be generated from this impurity, mostly the beta emitter 241Pu.…”

“…A review o f the s t a t e -o f -t h e -a r t and p o s s i b l e treatment (Griggs 1974) sequences t o decontaminate t h e h u l l waste was conducted and i t was found t h a t i t might be p o s s i b l e t o clean and m e l t t h i s waste i n t o a metal i n g o t w i t h a minor t r a n s u r a n i c waste by-product.…”