The door to a muffle furnace at the Y-12 National Security Complex’s Analytical Chemistry Facility “blew open” after a “violent reaction” in May, according to a Friday report from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB).
A chemist working near the muffle furnace in Y-12’s Building 9995 was not harmed when the equipment ejected glass vials filled with uranium, laboratory waste with organic epoxies, and lithium compounds, the DNFSB report says.
Muffle furnaces heat materials to a very high temperatures. At Y-12, the furnaces separate uranium from other materials for reuse or analysis.
Consolidated Nuclear Security, which manages and operates the Oak Ridge, Tenn., facility under contract to the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), did not immediately reply to a request for comment on Monday.
Building 9995 was built in 1957 and renovated most recently in 2016. In its laboratories, personnel analyze the purity of uranium intended for use in nuclear weapons and naval reactors, and analyze soil and groundwater samples that might be contaminated by the site’s uranium operations. Y-12 will continue to rely on the building for analytical chemistry work into the 2040s; unlike other key Y-12 uranium facilities, Building 9995 will not be replaced by the Uranium Processing Facility now being built at the site.
The Uranium Processing Facility will be finished by December 2025 at a cost of no more than $6.5 billion, the NNSA says.
