A review of potential alternatives for air cleaning at the Hanford Waste Vitrification Plant

Pacific Northwest Laboratory conducted this review in support of the Hanford Waste Vitrification Plant (HWVP) being designed by Fluor Daniel Inc. for the US Department of Energy (DOE). The literature on air cleaning systems is reviewed to identify potential air cleaning alternatives that might be included in the design of HWVP. An overview of advantages/disadvantages of the various air cleaning technologies follows. Information and references are presented for the following potential air cleaning alternatives: deep-bed glass-fiber filters (DBGF), high-efficiency particulate air filters (HEPA), remote modular filter systems, high-efficiency mist eliminators (HEME), electrostatic precipitators, and the sand filter. Selected information is summarized for systems in the United States, Belgium, Japan, and West Germany. This review addresses high-capacity air cleaning systems currently used in the nuclear industry and emphasizes recent developments. 10 refs., 9 figs., 3 tabs

Plutonium concentrations in airborne soil at Rocky Flats and Hanford

The objective of this paper is to summarize measured resuspension concentrations and to consider the implications of these results. In these experiments, airborne concentrations were measured as functions of wind speed, airborne particle size, wind direction, and the collected-plutonium and other nuclides per gram of airborne soil. Airborne radionuclides were normalized by the total amount of airborne solids to relate concentration per gram of airborne solid to concentration per gram of radionuclide on the ground

Evaluation of a high-volume cascade particle impactor system

From American Chemical Society 2nd joint conference on sensing of environmental pollutants; Washington, District of Columbia, USA (10 Dec 1973). Commercially available 20 cfm cascade impactors were evaluated under field sampling conditions for particle sampling bias caused by interstage losses and by non-wind direction sampler oriertation. An integrated sampler using an impactor and a winddirection self-orienting cowl attachment decreased particle sampling bias. (auth

Some initial measurements of DDT resuspension and translocation from Pacific Northwest forests

Non

A Field and Modeling Study of Windblown Particles from a Uranium Mill Tailings Pile

An extensive field study whose primary objective was to obtain knowledge and understanding of the nature and quantity of windblown particles from uranium mill tailings piles was conducted in the Ambrosia Lake District of New Mexico. The following major field tasks were undertaken: determination of physical, chemical, and radioactivity characteristics of mill tailings particles; an investigation of the nature and quantity of tailings particles in soil in the vicinity of tailings piles; and the determination of the nature and flux of particles being transported by wind as a function of wind speed and height. Results of the field study are presented. Particle size distributions and associated radioactivity were measured. Radioactivity relationships showed uranium daughters in mill tailings to be in essential radioactive equilibrium for the carbonate leach process but thorium-230 tends to be leached into the slurry water for the acid process mill tailings. One objective of the study was to relate windblown particle concentrations, fluxes, and particle sizes to wind speed. Hundreds of samples were taken and analyses were performed, but relationships between wind speed, airborne particle sizes and concentrations were found to be vague and inconclusive. A resuspension, deposition, and transport model was developed and applied using site meteorology. Ground deposition patterns predicted were similar to those found