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PCT Leach Tests of Hot Isostatically Pressed (HIPped) ZeoliticConcretes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 September 2012

D. D. Siemer ,
Delia M. Roy ,
Michael W. Grutzeck ,
M. L. D. Gougar  and
Barry E. Scheetz
D. D. Siemer
Affiliation:
LITCO, P.O. Box 1625, Idaho Falls, ID 83415–3485
Delia M. Roy
Affiliation:
Materials Research Laboratory, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802.
Michael W. Grutzeck
Affiliation:
Materials Research Laboratory, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802.
M. L. D. Gougar
Affiliation:
Materials Research Laboratory, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802.
Barry E. Scheetz
Affiliation:
Materials Research Laboratory, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802.
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Abstract

The logical place for the US Federal government to site a permanentrepository for its massive accumulation of cold-war reprocessing radwastewould be at its primary cold-war nuclear device testing reservation, theNevada Test Site(1). Regardless of whether it eventually choosesto implement that repository by drilling lateral “drifts” into consolidatedrock (e.g. its proposed Yucca Mountain facility) or by augeringmoderately-deep boreholes into unwelded alluvium beds (e.g. the “GreaterConfinement Disposal (GCD) repository implemented at Frenchman Flats in 1984 (2), zeolitic hydroceramic materials would be more stable thanwould glasses. The thermodynamic rationale for this is that in such regions,soil solutions and soil gasses both tend to “weather” buried natural glassesto zeolitic materials(3). It has also been demonstrated that thesame type of phases form when properly designed cementitious “grouts” arecured under mild hydrothermal conditions(4,5) - precisely thoseconditions assumed by DOE's repository modelers for “failed” (i.e. flooded)repositories and under which radwaste-type glasses rapidly decompose to formcrystalline zeolitic phases(6,7).

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 465: Symposium II – Scienfific Basis for Nuclear Waste Management XX , 1996 , 303
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1997

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References

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