Residues from processing irradiated nuclear materials at the Savannah River Site (SRS) contain a majority of the elements found in the periodic table.  These residues are stored in underground carbon steel tanks as precipitated metal hydroxides and hydrous oxides, concentrated supernatant liquids and saltcake.  The disposition strategy for these chemical residues concentrates the radioactive elements into a small volume for incorporation into a highly durable borosilicate-glass wasteform.  The decontaminated residues or low-activity wastes are disposed of as a cementitious wasteform in a near-surface engineered vault.  Successful radiochemical separations require accurate and precise measurements of a large number of elements and radioisotopes that are present in the high-level waste (HLW) supernatants.  Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) is an attractive analytical technique because of the relatively simple sample preparation, speed, and simultaneous acquisition of a large fraction of elements found in HLW solutions. This paper will present examples where the use of ICP-MS analyses proved invaluable in developing pretreatment processes at the SRS.

Use of inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry for the pretreatment of high-level wastes at the Savannah River Site

248th National Meeting (2014)

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