Hanford Supplemental Treatment: Literature and Modeling Review of SRS HLW Salt Dissolution and Fractional Crystallization

In order to accelerate waste treatment and disposal of Hanford tank waste by 2028, the Department of Energy (DOE) and CH2M Hill Hanford Group (CHG), Inc. are evaluating alternative technologies which will be used in conjunction with the Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) to safely pretreat and immobilize the tank waste. Several technologies (Bulk Vitrification and Steam Reforming) are currently being evaluated for immobilizing the pretreated waste. Since the WTP does not have sufficient capacity to pretreat all the waste going to supplemental treatment by the 2028 milestone, two technologies (Selective Dissolution and Fractional Crystallization) are being considered for pretreatment of salt waste. The scope of this task was to: (1) evaluate the recent Savannah River Site (SRS) Tank 41 dissolution campaign and other literature to provide a more complete understanding of selective dissolution, (2) provide an update on the progress of salt dissolution and modeling activities at SRS, (3) investigate SRS experience and outside literature sources on industrial equipment and experimental results of previous fractional crystallization processes, and (4) evaluate recent Hanford AP104 boildown experiments and modeling results and recommend enhancements to the Environmental Simulation Program (ESP) to improve its predictive capabilities. This report provides a summary of this work and suggested recommendations

The Role of Liquid Waste Pretreatment Technologies in Solving the Doe Clean-Up Mission

The objective of this report is to describe the pretreatment solutions that allow treatment to be tailored to specific wastes, processing ahead of the completion schedules for the main treatment facilities, and reduction of technical risks associated with future processing schedules. Wastes stored at Hanford and Savannah River offer challenging scientific and engineering tasks. At both sites, space limitations confound the ability to effectively retrieve and treat the wastes. Additionally, the radiation dose to the worker operating and maintaining the radiochemical plants has a large role in establishing the desired radioactivity removal. However, the regulatory requirements to treat supernatant and saltcake tank wastes differ at the two sites. Hanford must treat and remove radioactivity from the tanks based on the TriParty Agreement and Waste Incidental to Reprocessing (WIR) documentation. These authorizing documents do not specify treatment technologies; rather, they specify endstate conditions. Dissimilarly, Waste Determinations prepared at SRS in accordance with Section 3116 of the 2005 National Defense Authorization Act along with state operating permits establish the methodology and amounts of radioactivity that must be removed and may be disposed of in South Carolina. After removal of entrained solids and site-specific radionuclides, supernatant and saltcake wastes are considered to be low activity waste (LAW) and are immobilized in glass and disposed of at the Hanford Site Integrated Disposal Facility (IDF) or formulated into a grout for disposal at the Savannah River Site Saltstone Disposal Facility. Wastes stored at the Hanford Site or SRS comprise saltcake, supernate, and sludges. The supernatant and saltcake waste fractions contain primarily sodium salts, metals (e.g., Al, Cr), cesium-137 (Cs-137), technetium-99 (Tc-99) and entrained solids containing radionuclides such as strontium-90 (Sr-90) and transuranic elements. The sludges contain many of the transition metal hydroxides that precipitate when the spent acidic process solutions are rendered alkaline with sodium hydroxide. The sludges contain Sr-90 and transuranic elements. The wastes stored at each site have been generated and stored for over fifty years. Although the majority of the wastes were generated to support nuclear weapons production and reprocessing, the wastes differ substantially between the sites. Table 5 shows the volumes and total radioactivity (including decay daughters) of the waste phases stored in tanks at each site. At Hanford, there are 177 tanks that contain 56.5 Mgal of waste. SRS has 51 larger tanks, of which 2 are closed, that contain 36.5 Mgal. Mainly due to recovery operations, the waste stored at Hanford has less total curies than that stored at Savannah River. The total radioactivity of the Hanford wastes contains approximately 190 MCi, and the total radioactivity of the Savannah River wastes contains 400 MCi

Generic flowsheet model for early inventory estimates of industrial microbial processes. II. Downstream processing

AbstractTo ensure optimal process flowsheet selection it is valuable to conduct environmental and economic comparisons at an early stage of technology selection and process design. However, the data that is needed to perform these studies are not available at this stage of process development. This is also true for bioprocess systems. To overcome the lack of data, the CeBER (Centre for Bioprocess Engineering Research, University of Cape Town) Bioprocess Modeller was developed to provide material and energy values for industrial microbial processes.This paper presents the downstream processing portion of this flowsheet. The model allows for solid–liquid separation, cell disruption, concentration and formulation units as required. The model allows section of appropriate downstream processing units include, amongst others, centrifugation, filtration, precipitation and freeze-drying. At each downstream processing stage, non-reacting and reacting chemicals can be added. The model provides both a material inventory as well as the calculation of the energy input required and waste heat generated.Additionally, the model includes a database of values (including constants, operating conditions and others), drawn from various industrial norms and academic sources. Should specific information not be known, the model selects the most appropriate values based on other decisions made through the model

Batch Versus Continuous Acetaminophen Production

Globally, acetaminophen is one of the most highly consumed over-the-counter drugs with an estimated market size nearing $10 billion at the close of 2021. Price increases of over-the-counter drugs are driving the market towards generics which places significant pressure on the manufacturing segment to meet the new consumer demand. The largest manufacturers currently operate with an industry standard batch process to synthesize acetaminophen powder at a yield of 30,000MT/year. The chemical engineering community proposes that a continuous process can offer significant benefits including reduced capital and operating costs, improved reaction control, and increased energy efficiency. This project demonstrates that at a production capacity of 30,000MT/year, under identical thermodynamic conditions, a continuous process is over 5 times more profitable than the corresponding batch process. At a price of$4/kg, the continuous process will yield a 15-year Net Present Value (NPV) of $38,000,000 with an Internal Rate of Return (IRR) of 33$7,300,000 and 18% for the batch process. The continuous process provides increasingly better financial returns as sale price increases relative to the batch process. Multiple factors contribute to the continuous process being more economical. The most significant factor is the lower equipment cost of $40,0200,000 USD for the continuous process compared to$67,300,000 USD for the batch process. Additionally, the continuous process sees lower operating costs in terms of both decreased energy consumption and lower operator costs. These conclusions provide justification for the continued development of a continuous process as the impact on society, pharmacy and the environment could be profound

XVIII International Coal Preparation Congress

Changes in economic and market conditions of mineral raw materials in recent years have greatly increased demands on the ef fi ciency of mining production. This is certainly true of the coal industry. World coal consumption is growing faster than other types of fuel and in the past year it exceeded 7.6 billion tons. Coal extraction and processing technology are continuously evolving, becoming more economical and environmentally friendly. “ Clean coal ” technology is becoming increasingly popular. Coal chemistry, production of new materials and pharmacology are now added to the traditional use areas — power industry and metallurgy. The leading role in the development of new areas of coal use belongs to preparation technology and advanced coal processing. Hi-tech modern technology and the increasing interna- tional demand for its effectiveness and ef fi ciency put completely new goals for the University. Our main task is to develop a new generation of workforce capacity and research in line with global trends in the development of science and technology to address critical industry issues. Today Russia, like the rest of the world faces rapid and profound changes affecting all spheres of life. The de fi ning feature of modern era has been a rapid development of high technology, intellectual capital being its main asset and resource. The dynamics of scienti fi c and technological development requires acti- vation of University research activities. The University must be a generator of ideas to meet the needs of the economy and national development. Due to the high intellectual potential, University expert mission becomes more and more called for and is capable of providing professional assessment and building science-based predictions in various fi elds. Coal industry, as well as the whole fuel and energy sector of the global economy is growing fast. Global multinational energy companies are less likely to be under state in fl uence and will soon become the main mechanism for the rapid spread of technologies based on new knowledge. Mineral resources will have an even greater impact on the stability of the economies of many countries. Current progress in the technology of coal-based gas synthesis is not just a change in the traditional energy markets, but the emergence of new products of direct consumption, obtained from coal, such as synthetic fuels, chemicals and agrochemical products. All this requires a revision of the value of coal in the modern world economy

Predictive solvent and anti-solvent selection method for pharmaceutical and biological products and intermediates.

Doctoral Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.Abstract available in pdf

Combined wet milling crystallisation methods for particle engineering

Recent advances in pharmaceutical manufacturing for consistent supply of medicines with the required physical properties has emphasised the need for robust crystallisation processes which is a critical separation and purification technique. Mechanical milling is employed post crystallisation as an offline unit operation usually in a separate dry solids processing facility for adjusting the particle size and shape attributes of crystalline products for downstream processing. An emerging and increasingly applied technology is high shear wet milling in crystalline slurries for inline size and shape modification during particle formation. This potentially avoids the need for multiple crystallisation trials and offline milling saving time, costs and powder handling. Similarly, sonication is a powerful particle engineering tool through immersing ultrasound probes directly in solution. This PhD project is focused on the investigation and process integration of wet milling and indirect ultrasound for enhancing crystallisation processes and engineering particle attributes. The experimental study combined a cooling and isothermal crystallisation (seeded & unseeded) process with wet milling and indirect sonication. Results from the combined method provides the ability to modify and selectively achieve a range of product outcomes including particle sizes with tight spans, equant shapes and low surface energies as well as increased nucleation rates.;High shear from wet milling is also implemented as a seeding protocol configured to a mixed-suspension mixed-product removal continuous crystalliser which proved to be an adequate seed generation strategy.Deploying accurate quantitative analysis of size and shape attributes for solid particles is further explored. A multi-sensor measurement approach was employed using inline sensors, computational tools and offline techniques. The performance of these tools were vigorously tested for strengths and limitations which was proven to be beneficial for characterising the breakage of crystalline materials as well as overall process understanding and opportunities for process control.Recent advances in pharmaceutical manufacturing for consistent supply of medicines with the required physical properties has emphasised the need for robust crystallisation processes which is a critical separation and purification technique. Mechanical milling is employed post crystallisation as an offline unit operation usually in a separate dry solids processing facility for adjusting the particle size and shape attributes of crystalline products for downstream processing. An emerging and increasingly applied technology is high shear wet milling in crystalline slurries for inline size and shape modification during particle formation. This potentially avoids the need for multiple crystallisation trials and offline milling saving time, costs and powder handling. Similarly, sonication is a powerful particle engineering tool through immersing ultrasound probes directly in solution. This PhD project is focused on the investigation and process integration of wet milling and indirect ultrasound for enhancing crystallisation processes and engineering particle attributes. The experimental study combined a cooling and isothermal crystallisation (seeded & unseeded) process with wet milling and indirect sonication. Results from the combined method provides the ability to modify and selectively achieve a range of product outcomes including particle sizes with tight spans, equant shapes and low surface energies as well as increased nucleation rates.;High shear from wet milling is also implemented as a seeding protocol configured to a mixed-suspension mixed-product removal continuous crystalliser which proved to be an adequate seed generation strategy.Deploying accurate quantitative analysis of size and shape attributes for solid particles is further explored. A multi-sensor measurement approach was employed using inline sensors, computational tools and offline techniques. The performance of these tools were vigorously tested for strengths and limitations which was proven to be beneficial for characterising the breakage of crystalline materials as well as overall process understanding and opportunities for process control