Filtration Testing with Hanford High Level Waste Samples and Simulants

The Waste Treatment Plant currently under construction for treatment of High Level Waste at the Hanford Site will rely on ultrafiltration to provide solids liquid separation as a core part of the treatment process. A series of bench scale actual waste and simulant tests have been performed to evaluate the ultrafiltration performance that can be expected as part of this process. This research has focused on correlation of two key parameters to filtration rate: the maximum achievable slurry concentration and the fines concentration present in the slurry feed.

A series of tests were performed using slurries characterized by a ranging of maximum achievable slurry concentration (as defined by centrifuge tests). Similarly, the particle size distribution of these slurries was adjusted by adding small concentrations of fine particulate materials to adjust the particle size distribution of the slurry feeds. These results were then assembled to build a model of filtration behavior that could be used to predict filtration rate based on a limited set of physical characterizations.