Toward Sustainable Cementitious Radioactive Waste Forms: Immobilization of Problematic Operational Wastes

Developing effective radioactive waste management practices is essential for ensuring the sustainability of the nuclear industry. The immobilization of radioactive wastes is one of the main activities conducted during the management of these wastes; it aims to produce a durable waste form that has sustainable performance over long periods of time. In this work, the challenges that face the design of durable cementitious waste forms are addressed for problematic operational wastes. In this respect, the problematic characteristics of evaporator concentrates, spent ion exchangers, and organic liquid wastes are overviewed, and the factors that affect the durability of their cementitious waste forms are identified. A summary of potential conventional and innovative cementitious matrices is presented by reviewing the cementation practices in national programs and recent research devoted to developing durable matrices. Finally, a guide to optimize the mix design of these waste forms was proposed that includes the selection of the testing procedure, factors that affect the waste form performance, and the optimization technique. This guide was presented with special focus on leaching tests, which are a means to test the stabilization performance of nuclear waste forms.

ILT20 – an Upgraded Computer Program for Evaluation of Accelerated Leach Test Data of LLW in the Hungarian NPP Paks

Computer Program ILT15 was earlier developed to accompany a new leach test for solidified radioactive waste forms in the Hungarian NPP Paks. The program was designed to be used as a tool for performing the calculations necessary to analyze leach test data, a modelling program to determine if diffusion is the operating leaching mechanism (and, if not, to indicate other possible mechanisms), and a means to make extrapolations using the diffusion models. The program uses computational algorithm of ASTM C1308 standard. Now we have developed another computational algorithm based on a Partial Differential Equation (PDE) of a cylindrical specimen, solved the PDE by a Crank-Nicolson Finite Difference Method (FDM) and calculated by integration the eluted amount of a given component in time. The new solution more accurate method was integrated into the existing ILT15 computer program and the resulting new ILT20 program is able to calculate the Incremental/Cumulative Fraction Leached IFL/CFL) either by ASTM or PDE numerical solution methods.ILT20 program is written in C++ in the Borland C++ Builder programming environment. A detailed description of application of this upgraded modelling computer program is given.