UCOR’s TRU Waste Ops team shipped a second load of water-reactive sodium shields used in Cold War-era radiation experiments to a Texas treatment facility yesterday.
The latest shipment involved three of the shields in inventory. Two shields were shipped in July and were melted using Veolia Nuclear Solutions’ patented GeoMelt® technology. GeoMelt® uses a commercially proven approach to produce a RCRA-compliant waste form that can then be safely disposed of. The innovative process will transform these reactive metals into a stable glass form through vitrification at the Veolia facility located at Waste Control Specialists in Andrews, Texas.
The shields were constructed during the height of radiation shielding research activities in the 1960s and 1970s. They consist of aluminum and steel containers filled with water-reactive sodium or lithium hydride metals. Scientists at ORNL’s Tower Shielding Facility—operational from 1954 to 1992—used these materials to conduct pioneering measurements of neutron transport through various shielding configurations.
