EVALUATION OF THIN-FILM EVAPORATION FOR DECONTAMINATION AND IMMOBILIZATION OF AQUEOUS NUCLEAR WASTE

In the early 1980's, AECL, at the Chalk River Laboratory (CRL) site, built a Waste Treatment Centre <WTC) for managing low level solid and aqueous liquid wastes. The objective was to demonstrate processes for converting Canadian Deuterium Uranium (CANDU) wastes to a form suitable for disposal while meeting or exceeding current environmental regulations. At present, two liquid waste streams are being treated at the Waste Treatment Centre. The liquid waste streams are volume reduced by a combination of continuous crossflow microfiltration (MF), spiral wound reverse osmosis (SWRO), and tubular reverse osmosis (TRO) membrane technologies [1]. The concentrate produced from the TRO system and the volume-reduced MF backwash solutions are evaporated while simultaneously adding bitumen in a thin-film evaporator. A water-free product of chemical and radiochemical salts and bitumen is removed in 200 L galvanized steel drums for storage and eventual disposal in the CRL Waste Management Area. The feed stream to the thin-film evaporator typically has a f5/y activity of about 1- 3 jiCi/mL. This intermediate-level radioactive stream is concentrated by a factor of about 10, while simultaneously being immobilized. The radiation field of product drums on contact typically has a value of 0.5 to 3 R/h depending upon the feed concentration of radioactivity to the evaporator. The total solids content in the 2 00 L drum ranges from 25 % to 35%. Encapsulated in the bitumen matrix are a variety of non-radiochemical salts {including sodium phosphate, sodium sulphate, and sodium carbonate) which comprise the bulk of the total solids in the product drum. The drum contains less than 1 % of free water. The paper will discuss the volume reduction capability of the plant, with an emphasis on the immobilization of the aqueous waste with bitumen in a thin-film evaporator. Operations experience gained from over 200 campaigns is documented in the paper