Rocky Flats Plant, processing

Chemical processing activities involve the recovery of plutonium from Rocky Flats Plant scrap, waste materials and residues, and effluent streams. The final product of this recovery and purification effort is high-purity plutonium metal for use in foundry operations. 

Another 1991 cost estimate was performed by the Bechtel Corporation for the U.S. Department of Energy s (DOE s) Rocky Flats Plant near Boulder, Colorado. Costs were estimated at 40 per 1000 gal for a system in a site with relatively low solar insolation. The estimate was based on a system with a peak water flow of 6.3 liters/sec and an annual treated volume of 8500 gal. The processing costs were dominated by the cost of a system to treat inorganic components of the water (D12953N, p. 203). 

The extraction salt is an attractive source of 2 flAm. At the Department of Energy s Rocky Flats Plant (RFP), the production scale recovery and purification of 2klAm from the extraction salts has involved aqueous ion exchange and precipitation processes. 

Pilot plant scale testing of the extraction chromatography process is currently in progress at Rocky Flats Plant. When adequate testing of both the solvent extraction and extraction chromatography methods has been accomplished, the methods will be compared to see which has the greatest promise for recovering the americium from special MSE residues. 

De Marteau J.M. and Sorale, S., Process for recovering Uranium contained in phosphate compounds. Report RFP-ABST-09. Rockwell Int. Co., Rocky Flats Plant, 1983. 

A prime responsibility of the Rocky Flats Plant since it was built by the Atomic Energy Commission some 25 years ago has been the recovery and purification of plutonium. This recovery and purification has been done using an aqueous process. One of the major steps in that process is the precipitation of plutonium peroxide. This step converts the plutonium from an aqueous to a solid form for further processing and conversion to metal. 

The Rocky Flats Plant (RFP) has a large recovery facility to recover plutonium from miscellaneous scraps and residues a byproduct in the plutonium recovery stream is americium from the decay of plutonium-241. Currently a NaCl-KCl-MgClo eutectic salt is used at Rocky Flats to separate americium from plutonium in a molten salt extraction (MSE) process. 

McGlochlin, S. C. Harder, R. V. Jensen, R. T. Pettis, S. A. Roggenthen, D. K., "Evaluation of Prospective Hazardous Waste Treatment Technologies for Use in Processing Low-Level Mixed Wastes at Rocky Flats," EG G Rocky Flats, Inc., Rocky Flats Plant, Golden, CO, 1990, RFP-4264. 

This paper reviews the Rocky Flats Plant e q)erience in the application of borosilicate-glass Raschig rings as a primary criticality control in fissile-solution handling processes. Included is a history of their introduction at Rocky Flats as well as a record of the problems encountered with their use. 

Traditionally, the recovery and purification of americium has utilized primarily aqueous ion-exchange, solvent extraction, and precipitation processes. Departures are represented by the pyrochemical process and distillation of americium metal in high vacuum used at the Rocky Flats plant (Colorado) [333]. 

Thiocyanate anion-exchange systems have been used to purify americium from rare earths until recently supplanted, a plant-scale thiocyanate ion-exchange process was in long use at the Rocky Flats plant (1960-75) for routine purification of Am recovered from aged plutonium metal [16], This purification scheme was developed at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory by Coleman et al. [59]. 

A cation-anion exchange process has recently replaced the hydroxide precipitation and thiocyanate ion-exchange systems formerly used at the Rocky Flats plant for recovering Am from solutions of spent NaCl-KCl-MgCl2 salt residues [63]. 

Proctor, S. G. (1975) Cation Exchange Process for Molten Salt Extraction Residues, USERDA Report RFP-2347, Rocky Flats Plant, Dow Chemical Company. Campbell, D. O. (1970) Ind. Eng. Chem. Process Des. Dev. 9, 95-9. 

Figure 1 shows a simplified flow sheet for plutonium-239 recovery operations at Rocky Flats. Impure plutonium metal is sent through a pyrochemical process, called molten salt extraction (MSE), to remove the elemental impurity americium. The product plutonium metal, if it meets plant purity requirements, is sent to the foundry. Metal that does not meet foundry requirements is processed further, either through an aqueous process using ion exchange, or through a pyrochemical electrorefining process. The waste chloride salt from MSE is... 

The Dow Nuclear Safety Facility has the primary goal of supporting the Dow-AEC production complex at Rocky Flats. This is accomplished by performing pertinent experiments to provide checks for our computational methods. These computational methods are then used to design chemical and metallurgical processing equipment and fissile storage facilities. However, some of the experiments have direct application to specific plant problems. 

The French CRAC data are directly applicable to the usual uranium solution process plant situations with respect to variables of the range of fill rates and solution concentrations. The data available are applicable tor the first burst of a solution excursion tor tanks of about 1-ft diam and for 2i-ft diam up to an 18-in. height. Unfortunately, there are no data above 18 in. for the 23-ft-diam tank nor for the larger tanks which are more typical of the Rocky Flats areas. Of those experiments that lasted longer than 30 min, only one had much... 

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