Vitrification of a surrogate for high-level wastes from the Savannah River plant (USA) on a cold-crucible bench facility

Two experiments on the vitrification of a surrogate for the wastes from the Savannah River plant (USA) have been performed on a cold-crucible (inner diameter 216 mm) induction-melting bench facility at the Moscow Scientific and Industrial Association Radon (1.76 MHz, 60 kW). To obtain borosilicate glasses with two compositions containing 45 mass % oxides of the wastes (computed) a slurry with moisture content about 60 mass % and a mixture of reagents as the glass-forming additives gave a mass velocity of the slip 8 kg/h on average, glass output about 2 kg/h, and specific glass product rate about 47 kg/(m²·h). The specific energy consumption was 20 k·W·h/kg. It was shown that the mass velocity of the slip can be increased to 18 kg/h. Switching to glass-forming additives consisting of the special borosilicate frit-200 and-320 and lowering the water content in the slurry to 25–30 mass % increases the productivity of the process by 15–35%. The specific glass production rate reaches 100 kg/(m²·h). The glasses produced contained a small quantity of a magnetitic spinel phase. __________ Translated from Atomnaya énergiya, Vol. 102, No. 4, pp. 225–232, April, 2007.