State of the art method for containment and disposal of liquid and solid radioactive waste using a molten aluminum alloy reactor

Learning Objectives Disposal methods of low and high level medical and reactor radioactive waste have been proposed and used including storage, burial, activated carbon, vitrification into borosilicate glass or released into the environment. We evaluate a new method of using a CTIC molten alloy reactor.

Methods: Feed material without pretreatment such as radioactive contaminated medical waste can be introduced into the molten aluminum alloy bath reactor with other proprietary ingredients at 700 degrees C and above resulting in chemical reduction followed by remediation of the molecular structures. Results: The molten alloy reactor appears well-suited for treating a spectrum of isotopic materials including contaminated or biohazard organic compounds. Radioactive materials dissolved or melted into the reactive metal can be concentrated to the desired level of activity with the option of adding photon absorbing metal. With the biohazard organic material reduced the concentrated isotopes may be drawn off to form cooled alloy ingots. The advantage of this chemical reduction based waste treatment process is that it is non-selective, since waste materials of biologic or ogranic compounds can be processed at one time. All of the chemical reduction reactions decompose molecular bonds at the liquid aluminum temperature of 700 degrees C and above. We have found a 84% reduction of total volume of material when processed in the alloy bath. Special electric fields are utilized to direct the charged beta particles into beta absorbing material. Conclusions: This state of the art disposal method for radioactive waste allows seperation of large biohazard or contaminated isotopic material has significant advantages to concentrate and store radioactive isotopes as alloy ingots as a solution for long term storage. Seperation of non radioactive and radioactive material and marked reduction of large volumes of biological or organic compounds is a significant advantage to other accepted modalities