The University of South Carolina (USC) has received an $8 million grant for research aimed at speeding up nuclear waste treatment at the Savannah River Site and other facilities where waste is being stored. The goal is to reconfigure the way the waste is stored.
The university announced on July 27 that it had received the grant the Department of Energy and that it will work with the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL), Brookhaven National Laboratory, Clemson University, and others on the research. Work began on Aug. 1. The grant will primarily be used to pay researchers who are working on the project.
Roughly 36 million gallons of radioactive liquid are housed in more than 40 waste storage tanks at the Savannah River Site. The Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) is used to break down the material and convert it into a less radioactive glassy form – a process known as vitrification. “It’s a slow process and the Department of Energy thinks it will take much too long,” Hanno zur Loye, a chemistry professor and researcher in the USC College of Arts and Sciences, said in an interview.
Loye said the goal is to find specialized ceramics, metal-organic composite materials, and nanoparticles to safely contain the nuclear waste for thousands of years. Over time, the radioactive isotopes would decay, removing the threat. Research is in the early stages, so there isn’t much more information on the type of materials that are needed to complete the process. Scientists who focus on characterization will work over the next several months to identify the best type of materials to use. Loye said whatever material is employed must be durable since radioactive decay takes tens of thousands of year. “It’s important to put them into a very safe material that isn’t affected by groundwater or other elements,” he said.
Last year, the Energy Department said the projection for completion of liquid waste cleanup at SRS have been moved from 2042 to 2065, with cost projections increasing to about $25 billion more than the original estimate. Officials previously estimated that the program would cost $60 to $70 billion. But cost projections reported last year estimated between $91 billion and $109 billion.
