Production of sodalite waste forms by addition of glass

Spent nuclear fuel can be treated in a molten salt electrorefiner for conversion into metal and mineral waste forms for geologic disposal. Sodalite is one of the mineral waste forms under study. Fission products in the molten salt are ion-exchanged into zeolite A, which is converted to sodalite and consolidated. Sodalite can be formed directly from mixtures of salt and zeolite A at temperatures above 975 K; however, nepheline is usually produced as a secondary phase. Addition of small amounts of glass frit to the mixture reduced nepheline formation significantly. Loss of fission products was not observed for reaction below 1000 K. Hot-pressing of the sodalite powders yielded dense pellets ({approximately}2.3 g/cm{sup 3}) without any loss of fission product species. Normalized release rates were below 1 g/m{sup 2}{center_dot}day for pre-washed samples in 28-day leach tests based on standard MCC-1 tests but increased with the presence of free salt on the sodalite.