Uranium Metal Analysis via Selective Dissolution

Delegard, Calvin H. ; Sinkov, Sergey I. ; Schmidt, Andrew J. ; Chenault, Jeffrey W.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (U.S.)

关键词: Sludges;    Management;    Storage;    08 Hydrogen;    Processing;   

DOI  :  10.2172/944505
RP-ID  :  PNNL-17800
RP-ID  :  AC05-76RL01830
RP-ID  :  944505

美国|英语

来源: UNT Digital Library

【 摘 要 】

Uranium metal, which is present in sludge held in the Hanford Site K West Basin, can create hazardous hydrogen atmospheres during sludge handling, immobilization, or subsequent transport and storage operations by its oxidation/corrosion in water. A thorough knowledge of the uranium metal concentration in sludge therefore is essential to successful sludge management and waste process design. The goal of this work was to establish a rapid routine analytical method to determine uranium metal concentrations as low as 0.03 wt% in sludge even in the presence of up to 1000-fold higher total uranium concentrations (i.e., up to 30 wt% and more uranium) for samples to be taken during the upcoming sludge characterization campaign and in future analyses for sludge handling and processing. This report describes the experiments and results obtained in developing the selective dissolution technique to determine uranium metal concentration in K Basin sludge.