Waste Form Qualification Experience at the West Valley Demonstration Project

Since 1996, the West Valley Demonstration Project (WVDP) has operated a slurry-fed ceramic melter to vitrify high-level nuclear waste (HLW) for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). More than 65 batches of HLW were mixed with glass-forming chemicals between June 1996 and August 2002 to make a ''qualified'' HLW form. The nuances of this procedure and the lessons learned from the application of the process will be provided in this paper to guide future producers of immobilized HLW