Hanford tank waste will be separated into high-level and low-level portions; each portion will then be vitrified to produce a stable glass form for disposal. Because of the wide variability in the tank waste compositions, blending is being considered as a way to reduce the number of distinct compositions that must be vitrified and to minimize the resultant volume of vitrified waste.
This paper discusses several approaches to blending and models developed to formulate blends for each approach. The models produce optimized blends which minimize the volume of glass required such that all composition and property constraints on the glass are satisfied. The paper will discuss several blending strategies, and will provide the results of calculations comparing the approaches and strategies. Finally, an overall strategy for retrieving, blending, and vitrifying Hanford tank waste will be briefly discussed.
Results of the calculations for high-level waste show that an effective blending strategy can greatly reduce the volume of glass required to immobilize the waste.