Glasses for Nuclear Waste Immobilization

Vitrification of nuclear wastes is attractive because of its flexibility, the large number of elements which can be incorporated in the glass, its high corrosion durability and the reduced volume of the resulting waste form. Vitrification is a mature technology and has been used for high level nuclear waste (HLW) immobilisation for more than 40 years in France, Germany and Belgium, Russia, UK, Japan and the USA. Vitrification involves melting of waste materials with glass-forming additives so that the final vitreous product incorporates the waste contaminants in its macro- and micro-structure. Hazardous waste constituents are immobilised either by direct incorporation into the glass structure or by encapsulation when the final glassy material can be in form of a glass composite material (GCM). Both borosilicate and phosphate glasses are currently used to immobilise nuclear wastes, moreover in addition to relatively homogeneous glasses novel GCM are used to immobilise problematic waste streams. The spectrum of wastes which are currently vitrified increases from HLW to low and intermediate wastes (LILW) such as legacy wastes in Hanford, USA and nuclear power plant operational wastes in Russia and Korea.