Gas Generation from K East Basin Sludges - Series I Testing

Delegard, Calvin H. ; Bryan, Samuel A. ; Schmidt, Andrew J. ; Bredt, Paul R. ; King, Christopher M. ; Sell, Rachel L. ; Burger, Leland L. ; Silvers, Kurt L.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (U.S.)

关键词: Sludges;    Uranium;    Radioactive Waste Storage;    Fuel Storage Pools;    Corrosion Carbon Dioxide, Corrosion, Hydrogen, Gas, K Basin, Oxidation, Sludge, Spent Nuclear Fuel, Uranium;   

DOI  :  10.2172/15010243
RP-ID  :  PNNL-13320
RP-ID  :  AC05-76RL01830
RP-ID  :  15010243

美国|英语

来源: UNT Digital Library

【 摘 要 】

This report describes work to examine the gas generation behavior of actual K East (KE) Basin floor and canister sludge. The path forward for management of the K Basin Sludge is to retrieve, ship, and store the sludge at T Plant until final processing at some future date. Gas generation will impact the designs and costs of systems associated with retrieval, transportation and storage of sludge. The overall goals for this testing were to collect detailed gas generation rate and composition data to ascertain the quantity and reactivity of the metallic uranium (and other reactive species) present in the K Basin sludge. The gas generation evaluation included four large-scale vessels (850 ml) and eight small-scale vessels (30 ml) in an all-metal, leak tight system. The tests were conducted for several thousand hours at ambient and elevated temperatures (32 C, 40 C, 60 C, 80 C, and 95 C) to accelerated the reactions and provide conclusive gas generation data within a reasonable testing period. The sludge used for these tests was collected from the KE Basin floor and canister barrels (containing damaged spent fuel elements) using a consolidated sampling technique (i.e., material from several locations was combined to form ''consolidated samples''). Portions of these samples were sieved to separate particles greater than 250 m (P250) from particle less than 250 m (M250). This separation was performed to mimic the separation operations that are planned during the retrieval of certain K Basin sludge types and to gain a better understanding of how uranium metal is distributed in the sludge. The corrosion rate of the uranium metal particles in the sludge was found to agree reasonably well with corrosion rates reported in the literature.