U.S. Bureau of Mines, Phase 1 Hanford low-level waste melter tests. Final report

A multiphase program was initiated in 1994 to test commercially available melter technologies for the vitrification of the low-level waste (LLW) stream from defense wastes stored in underground tanks at the Hanford Site in southeastern Washington State. Phase 1 of the melter demonstration tests using simulated LLW was completed during fiscal year 1995. This document is the melter offgas report on testing performed by the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Mines, Albany Research Center in Albany, Oregon. The Bureau of Mines (one of the seven vendors selected) was chosen to demonstrate carbon electrode melter technology (also called carbon arc or electric arc) under WHC Subcontract number MMI-SVV-384216. The report contains description of the tests, observation, test data and some analysis of the data as it pertains to application of this technology for LLW vitrification. Testing consisted of melter feed preparation and three melter tests, the first of which was to fulfill the requirements of the statement of work (WHC-SD-EM-RD-044), and the second and third were to address issues identified during the first test. The document also contains summaries of the melter offgas report issued as a separate document U.S. Bureau of Mines, Phase 1 Hanford Low-Level Waste Melter Tests: Melter Offgas Report (WHC-SD-WM-VI-032)

Test plan for BWID Phase 2 electric arc melter vitrification tests

This test plan describes the Buried Waste Integrated Demonstration (BWID), Phase 2, electric arc melter, waste treatment evaluation tests to be performed at the US Bureau of Mines (USBM) Albany Research Center. The BWID Arc Melter Vitrification Project is being conducted to evaluate and demonstrate existing industrial arc melter technology for thermally treating mixed transuranic-contaminated wastes and soils. Phase 1 baseline tests, performed during fiscal year 1993 at the USBM, were conducted on waste feeds representing incinerated buried mixed wastes and soils. In Phase 2, surrogate feeds will be processed that represent actual as-retrieved buried wastes from the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory`s Subsurface Disposal Area at the Radioactive Waste Management Complex

Graphite electrode arc melter demonstration Phase 2 test results

Several U.S. Department of Energy organizations and the U.S. Bureau of Mines have been collaboratively conducting mixed waste treatment process demonstration testing on the near full-scale graphite electrode submerged arc melter system at the Bureau`s Albany (Oregon) Research Center. An initial test series successfully demonstrated arc melter capability for treating surrogate incinerator ash of buried mixed wastes with soil. The conceptual treatment process for that test series assumed that buried waste would be retrieved and incinerated, and that the incinerator ash would be vitrified in an arc melter. This report presents results from a recently completed second series of tests, undertaken to determine the ability of the arc melter system to stably process a wide range of {open_quotes}as-received{close_quotes} heterogeneous solid mixed wastes containing high levels of organics, representative of the wastes buried and stored at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (INEL). The Phase 2 demonstration test results indicate that an arc melter system is capable of directly processing these wastes and could enable elimination of an up-front incineration step in the conceptual treatment process