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Johnson, Fabienne C.

Publications and source records attributed to Johnson, Fabienne C..

20 records · Page 2

Reduced Neutralization Feasibility Study for H-Canyon Accelerated Basin De- Inventory (ABD) Program

An alternative approach to Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) and Nuclear Material Processing was developed for future H-Canyon (HCAN) and L-Area operations that involves a paradigm shift from current HCAN, Concentrate, Storage, and Transfer Facility (CSTF), and Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) operations. The alternative, referred to as Accelerated Basin De-inventory (ABD), requires that all Domestic and Foreign Research Reactor SNF currently at the Savannah River Site (SRS) will be dissolved, stored, and then transferred to CSTF without recovery of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU). Concentrated nitric acid is utilized to dissolve aluminum spent nuclear fuel (ASNF) in HCAN. The vessels and piping in HCAN are fabricated from 304L stainless steel and are ideally suited to handle the acidic waste stream. However, as the waste is transferred to the CSTF and DWPF, it will contact the carbon steel waste tanks in CSTF. In order to prevent corrosion of the carbon steel, the acidic waste is neutralized (i.e., pH adjusted over 11) by the addition of sodium hydroxide (NaOH). The NaOH is added until the final solution contains 1.2 M excess -OH. Additionally, if the waste is not neutralized to a pH greater than 11, then aluminum hydroxide (Al(OH) 3 ) would form, and solids may form in the piping as it is transferred to CSTF. This document presents an analysis of the influence of reducing the excess caustic that is added to the neutralization tanks on the corrosion protection scheme primarily for the CSTF waste tanks. The implications to HCAN and DWPF were also assessed.

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Method for estimating the density of high-level nuclear waste glass

A database of over 1100 silicate glass compositions and densities was compiled and used to evaluate the efficacy of an algorithm for estimating the density of silicate glass compositions. We sought to develop a parsimonious algorithm based on the additivity of partial molar volumes of individual oxide components weighted by their mole fraction in a glass composition. Bound molar volumes were used for oxides in which the density of the oxide bound in a glass matrix was previously determined. The bound molar volumes were known for oxides covering 97.5 mole percent of the database compositional space. The measured glass densities were plotted against the estimated glass densities and a linear regression yielded an R 2 adj. = 0.95 and a slope and intercept of approximately one and zero, respectively. This regression suggests that glass densities estimated by the algorithm, within analysis uncertainty, are equal to the measured densities of the glasses. In addition to the development of the density estimation, we corroborated many of the referenced bound molar volume data used in the parameterization of the estimation algorithm via linear regression of the individual partial molar volumes versus the inverse measured densities (specific volumes) of the glasses in the database.

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