Application of Archimedes Filter for Reduction of Hanford HLW

Archimedes Technology Group, Inc., is developing a plasma mass separator called the Archimedes Filter that separates waste oxide mixtures ion by ion into two mass groups: light and heavy. For the first time, it is feasible to separate large amounts of material atom by atom in a single pass device. Although vacuum ion based electromagnetic separations have been around for many decades, they have traditionally depended on ion beam manipulation. Neutral plasma devices, on the other hand, are much easier, less costly, and permit several orders of magnitude greater throughput. The Filter has many potential applications in areas where separation of species is otherwise difficult or expensive. In particular, radioactive waste sludges at Hanford have been a particularly difficult issue for pretreatment and immobilization. Over 75% of Hanford HLW oxide mass (excluding water, carbon, and nitrogen) has mass less than 59 g/mol. On the other hand, 99.9% of radionuclide activity has mass greater than 89 g/mol. Therefore, Filter mass separation tuned to this cutoff would have a dramatic effect on the amount of IHLW produced--in fact IHLW would be reduced by a factor of at least four. The Archimedes Filter is a brand new tool for the separations specialist's toolbox. In this paper, we show results that describe the extent to which the Filter separates ionized material. Such results provide estimates for the potential advantages of Filter tunability, both in cutoff mass (electric and magnetic fields) and in degree of ionization (plasma power). Archimedes is now engaged in design and fabrication of its Demonstration Filter separator and intends on performing a full-scale treatment of Hanford high-level waste surrogates. The status of the Demo project will be described

ITER plasma safety interface models and assessments

Physics models and requirements to be used as a basis for safety analysis studies are developed and physics results motivated by safety considerations are presented for the ITER design. Physics specifications are provided for enveloping plasma dynamic events for Category I (operational event), Category II (likely event), and Category III (unlikely event). A safety analysis code SAFALY has been developed to investigate plasma anomaly events. The plasma response to ex-vessel component failure and machine response to plasma transients are considered

ITER-EDA physics design requirements and plasma performance assessments

Physics design guidelines, plasma performance estimates, and sensitivity of performance to changes in physics assumptions are presented for the ITER-EDA Interim Design. The overall ITER device parameters have been derived from the performance goals using physics guidelines based on the physics R&D results. The ITER-EDA design has a single-null divertor configuration (divertor at the bottom) with a nominal plasma current of 21 MA, magnetic field of 5.68 T, major and minor radius of 8.14 m and 2.8 m, and a plasma elongation (at the 95% flux surface) of {approximately}1.6 that produces a nominal fusion power of {approximately}1.5 GW for an ignited burn pulse length of {ge}1000 s. The assessments have shown that ignition at 1.5 GW of fusion power can be sustained in ITER for 1000 s given present extrapolations of H-mode confinement ({tau}{sub E} = 0.85 {times} {tau}{sub ITER93H}), helium exhaust ({tau}*{sub He}/{tau}{sub E} = 10), representative plasma impurities (n{sub Be}/n{sub e} = 2%), and beta limit [{beta}{sub N} = {beta}(%)/(I/aB) {le} 2.5]. The provision of 100 MW of auxiliary power, necessary to access to H-mode during the approach to ignition, provides for the possibility of driven burn operations at Q = 15. This enables ITER to fulfill its mission of fusion power ({approximately} 1--1.5 GW) and fluence ({approximately}1 MWa/m{sup 2}) goals if confinement, impurity levels, or operational (density, beta) limits prove to be less favorable than present projections. The power threshold for H-L transition, confinement uncertainties, and operational limits (Greenwald density limit and beta limit) are potential performance limiting issues. Improvement of the helium exhaust ({tau}*{sub He}/{tau}{sub E} {le} 5) and potential operation in reverse-shear mode significantly improve ITER performance