Integrated DWPF Melter System (IDMS) campaign report: Hanford Waste Vitrification Plan (HWVP) process demonstration

Vitrification facilities are being developed worldwide to convert high-level nuclear waste to a durable glass form for permanent disposal. Facilities in the United States include the Department of Energy`s Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) at the Savannah River Site, the Hanford Waste Vitrification Plant (HWVP) at the Hanford Site and the West Valley Demonstration Project (WVDP) at West Valley, NY. At each of these sites, highly radioactive defense waste will be vitrified to a stable borosilicate glass. The DWPF and WVDP are near physical completion while the HWVP is in the design phase. The Integrated DWPF Melter System (IDMS) is a vitrification test facility at the Savannah River Technology Center (SRTC). It was designed and constructed to provide an engineering-scale representation of the DWPF melter and its associated feed preparation and off-gas treatment systems. Because of the similarities of the DWPF and HWVP processes, the IDMS facility has also been used to characterize the processing behavior of a reference NCAW simulant. The demonstration was undertaken specifically to determine material balances, to characterize the evolution of offgas products (especially hydrogen), to determine the effects of noble metals, and to obtain general HWVP design data. The campaign was conducted from November, 1991 to February, 1992.