More than 40 years of plutonium processing have left almost 56 million gallons of mixed radioactive waste sequestered in 177 underground tanks on the Hanford Site. Three different processing technologies were employed for plutonium purification in addition to uranium scavenging and fission product removal from the tank waste. All of these chemical processes have contributed to a complex waste stream that varies from tank to tank that presents downstream processing challenges to render the waste into a safe form for long‐term storage. The current disposition pathway for Hanford tank waste is vitrification. To maximize waste loading and minimize the number of high‐level waste canisters stored in a geologic repository, pretreatment of the waste is required. Both pretreatment and vitrification operations are impacted by the waste composition.

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汉福德坦克废物的历史，对废物处理和处置的影响

40加工已有40多年的历史，在汉福德基地的177个地下储罐中隔离了近5600万加仑的混合放射性废物。除了清除铀和从储罐废物中除去裂变产物外，还采用了三种不同的处理技术来净化purification。所有这些化学过程都导致了一个复杂的废物流，每个废物箱的废物流各不相同，这给下游处理带来了挑战，使废物成为可以长期储存的安全形式。汉福德坦克废物的当前处置途径是玻璃化。为了最大程度地增加废物负荷并最大程度地减少地质处置库中存储的高级别废物罐的数量，需要对废物进行预处理。预处理和玻璃化操作都会受到废物成分的影响。