A new mobile laboratory may help Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) better protect Hanford workers from exposure to chemical vapors at the tank farms.
This spring, about 50 workers at the Energy Department’s Hanford site near Richland, Wash., received medical evaluations for possible exposure to chemical vapors. All are being released to return to work. The most recent report was this week, after a worker said he had experienced symptoms the week before, prompting an evaluation at an onsite medical clinic.
To better characterize vapors reported at Hanford, and determine which could be harmful, WRPS is considering several uses for the commercially available Mobile Organic Monitoring Laboratory developed by RJ Lee Group — provided the contractor likes what it sees in tests.
The mobile lab previously underwent bench-scale testing at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. WRPS now has started a series of four one-week field tests over two months, driving the RJ Lee van that holds the scientific equipment to different places in and near the Hanford tank farm to collect air samples.
The tests will be used to determine the types and concentrations of chemicals it can measure at the tank farms and to consider how the mobile lab might be integrated with other technology already used to detect and monitor chemical vapors there.
If WRPS decides to add the equipment to its vapor protection program, the mobile lab could be used as a “storm chaser,” driving to areas where plumes are suspected to sample and track them, said Karthik Subramanian, manager of WRPS’s chief technology office. The lab also could be based at places where tanks vent to determine what is being released into the atmosphere.
Because the mobile lab’s mass spectrometer can detect thousands of chemicals, it could be used to help sort out which vapors are associated with tank waste, and which come from other sources such as car exhaust or diesel generators.
Currently at Hanford, tank farm workers evacuate an area if vapor-exposure symptoms are reported, or at least two workers report an odor. WRPS often reports after sampling air following potential vapor exposures that the chemicals it detected were well below regulatory levels.
The mobile laboratory offers three potential benefits – near real-time analysis, detailed chemical analysis and low detection limits, said Subramanian.
The lab is equipped with a proton-transfer-reaction mass spectrometer to analyze traces of volatile organic compounds as low as a few parts per trillion. It can detect about three-quarters of the 59 chemicals in the headspace of Hanford’s underground waste storage tanks containing so-called chemicals of concern that could harm workers when vented from the tank, Subramanian said. Chemical identification can be done in the van in near real-time, rather than sending off samples to a laboratory for analysis.
WRPS first discovered the mobile lab at a 2015 technology exchange workshop. The contractor plans a second technology exchange in July, which will specifically cover capture, destruction and elimination of chemical vapors.
