Projects & Programs
Waste Treatment Plant Support
Model of the Waste Treatment Plant Pretreatment Engineering Platform Installed in PDL-West
The waste treatment and immobilization plant (WTP) being built at the Hanford Site will be the largest chemical processing plant in the United States. Bechtel National Inc. (BNI) is the designer and constructor. Through its research and testing capabilities, PNNL has long supported and continues to support development of the WTP and Hanford tank waste processing in the following major areas:
- Waste Characterization
- Waste Simulant Development for Process Testing
- Low-Activity Waste Vitrification
- High-Level Waste Vitrification
- Caustic and Oxidative Leaching
- Cs/Tc Ion Exchange
- Sr/TRU Precipitation
- Ultra Filtration
- Pulse Jet Mixing
- Pretreatment Engineering Platform in PDL-West
- Pipeline Transport
- Regulatory Data Quality Objectives
- Statistics for Waste Form Qualification
- Staff Augmentation to Research and Technology and Process Technology Departments
- Stack Emissions Modeling
- Staff Augmentation to WTP Contractors
Pretreatment Engineering Platform
The Pretreatment Engineering Platform (PEP) installed in the Process Development Laboratory – West (PDL-W) is a nominally 1/4.5 engineering-scale prototype of select Hanford WTP facilities. The PEP is used to demonstrate WTP pretreatment chemical processes including caustic (NaOH) leaching of alumina and oxidative leaching of chrome, using non-radioactive Hanford waste surrogates (simulants). The PEP utilizes prototypic mixing systems in vessels (e.g., pulse jet mixers) and is used to assess a range of other process equipment, such as cell unit filters (CUF, ultra filtration to concentrate solids). PNNL's broad involvement in the PEP includes system installation, operation, sample acquisition and analysis, and data analysis and reporting. Additionally, PNNL staff from the Interfacial Science and Rheology Team have contributed to simulant development, preparation, and characterization for the PEP and to parallel bench-scale studies of leaching and ultra filtration processes in the Applied Process and Engineering Laboratory (APEL).
Pulse Jet Mixer in Advanced Processing and Engineering Laboratory High-bay