RICHLAND, Wash. – Rutgers University student Charles Cao was recently awarded second-place prize in the Innovations in Fuel Cycle Research Awards sponsored by DOE’s Office of Fuel Cycle Technologies.
September 30, 2016
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RICHLAND, Wash. – Rutgers University student Charles Cao was recently awarded second-place prize in the Innovations in Fuel Cycle Research Awards sponsored by DOE’s Office of Fuel Cycle Technologies.
Cao supports EM’s Office of River Protection (ORP) through a contract with Rutgers to further understanding of nepheline glass formation, separate from the work done for the award.
His work that led to the award applies to Hanford’s tank waste, focusing on the immobilization of radioactive iodine-129 through the development of a suitable ceramic waste form at room temperature, according to ORP glass scientist Albert Kruger.
Iodine-129 exhibits one of the longest half-lives out of all of the radioisotopes with a half-life of about 15.7 million years, said Kruger.
Due to its highly soluble nature, storage of iodine-129 waste in geological repositories represents a very complex challenge, according to Kruger. According to assessments from the Hanford Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant, iodine-129 will be the primary radiation emitter in the first 5,000 years after Hanford’s waste is immobilized, he said.
This was the first reported instance in which this material was synthesized at room temperature using wet chemistry. Cao is also working on developing a suitable glass binder to consolidate the apatite-based ceramic waste form. Apatite is a pale green to purple mineral, consisting of calcium phosphate with some fluorine, chlorine and other elements
Cao is part of a research group under Rutgers professor Ashutosh Goel, working to help ORP increase the amount of waste that can be immobilized in glass. Their work could cut the time and cost it takes to vitrify Hanford’s 56 million gallons of waste.
“This work allows for aluminum waste loading in borosilicate glass in excess of 30 weight percentage, by understanding how to avoid the growth of crystalline material that causes the waste glass to challenge the durability test imposed by the repository,” said Kruger.