The Department of Energy has initiated a major addition to the liquid waste mission at the Department of Savannah River Site in South Carolina, starting with a nine-month trial run.
Officials at the 310-square-mile facility near Aiken, S.C., said the tank closure cesium removal (TCCR) mission should process hundreds of thousands of gallons of salt waste by the end of October. The operation will remove cesium from the salt waste, making the waste suitable for permanent storage on-site.
The mission has for years been part of the overall plan to treat liquid waste at Savannah River. Liquid waste contractor Savannah River Remediation (SRR) awarded Westinghouse Electric Co. $12.4 million in July 2016 to build TCCR at the site’s tank farms. The equipment for the mission includes two large enclosures that house exchange columns. Salt waste is transferred into the enclosures and passed through the columns, which filter out the cesium. The removal process is major part of salt waste treatment at SRS due to the cesium’s highly radioactive nature.
Waste from one Savannah River storage tank will undergo the removal process during the nine-month demonstration. Once the process is the complete, the final solution of salt waste will be taken to the Saltstone Production Facility for permanent disposal. Meanwhile, the cesium and the materials used to treat the waste will be taken to a temporary location for close monitoring before being placed in interim storage location on-site.
Tank closure cesium removal is expected to process between 600,000 and 750,000 gallons of waste during the demonstration. At the end, DOE and liquid waste contractor Savannah River Remediation (SRR) will evaluate its effectiveness and decide if the process should continue.
Savannah River houses about 35 million gallons of Cold War-era liquid waste, stored in more than 40 underground tanks. About 90 percent of that volume is salt waste, which has been treated for years using a pilot process that also includes cesium removal.
