Development of a Systems Engineering Model of the Chemical Separations Process: Quarterly Progress Report 8/16/01- 11/15/01

The AAA program is developing technology for the transmutation of nuclear waste to address many of the long-term disposal issues. An integral part of this program is the proposed chemical separations scheme. Two activities are proposed in this Phase I task: the development of a systems engineering model and the refinement of the Argonne code AMUSE (Argonne Model for Universal Solvent Extraction). The detailed systems engineering model is the start of an integrated approach to the analysis of the materials separations associated with the AAA Program. A second portion of the project is to streamline and improve an integral part of the overall systems model, which is the software package AMUSE. AMUSE analyzes the UREX process and other related solvent extraction processes and defines many of the process streams that are integral to the systems engineering model. Combining these two tasks is important in ensuring that calculations made in AMUSE are accurately transferred to the overall systems model. Additional modules will be developed to model pyrochemical process operations not treated by AMUSE. These modules will be refined as experiments are conducted and as more knowledge is gained in process steps. Integrating all aspects of the proposed separations processes will allow for detailed process analyses, trade-off studies or the evaluation of proposed process steps, complete material balances that include all potential waste streams, the impact of changes in feed streams, studies detailing the importance of process control and instrumentation, and the ultimate optimization of the process