A national program managed at the U.S. Department of Energy's Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory has identified what may be one of the better technologies for treating certain waste streams without using incineration.
The Transuranic and Mixed Waste Focus Area (TMFA) sponsored by the DOE Office of Science and Technology, has chosen the AEA Technology Engineering Service's "Silver II" method for further testing. AEA Technology Engineering is based in Virginia.
"Silver II" chemically oxidizes molecules. The process operates at low temperature, is easy to control, treats most organic wastes, reduces waste volume, produces no dioxins or low-emission volumes containing polyaromatic hydrocarbons, and does not require pretreatment for small solids, slurries or liquid wastes. Pretreatment of larger solid organic waste may still be required.
The U.S. Army was already testing "Silver II" at the Aberdeen Proving Ground to destroy chemical weapons agents, and recently tested surrogate waste types for DOE to assist the Department in its effort to find effective and affordable alternatives to incineration.
"We jumped at the chance to test this technology because the pilot plant is already built," said Vince Maio, INEEL's manager of the TMFA's Alternatives to Incineration program. "That enables us to do a quick, cost-effective test of one of the top technologies we identified as an alternative to incineration."
If "Silver II" is successful in treating surrogate mixed waste, the process will likely be tested and possibly used for several difficult waste streams containing organics and other combustible materials from active handling operations at DOE's Savannah River Site and Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Several years before the INEEL began managing the national TMFA program for DOE in 1995, INEEL scientists and engineers began looking into methods of treating waste without the need for incineration. Researc
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Contact: John Walsh
jhw@inel.gov
208-526-8646
DOE/Idaho National Laboratory
3-Jan-2002