Sergei Putvinski

Archimedes Plasma Mass Filter

Some 60,000 and 46,000 MT of sodium rich nuclear waste are now in storage in the US at Hanford a nd SR S facilities, respectively. We have de veloped a technology that uses the high sodium content to advantage: aqueous slurry wastes are first calcined into sodium hydroxide ( NaOH) melt slurries, then vaporized an d injected into a pl asma. The Archimedes Filter separates plasma ions into light and hea vy mass groups. For the first time, it is feasible to economically separate large amounts of material in a single-pass plasma device. Such a s eparation would s ubstantially decontaminate H igh Level Waste since most radionuclides partition to the h eavy fraction. The p lasma process is based o n setting up fast ExB rotation of a cylindrical plasma. At a certain critical rotational velocity E > B/2 ions are not confined by axial magnetic field and are lost radially. Because the critical rotational velocity depends on magnetic field the plasma and machine parameters can be set u p to separate heavy radionuclides from majority of the light elements in the plasma and, thus, accomplish waste cl ean up. The paper discusses the F ilter process, describes a de monstration device t hat has been constructed i n San Diego, USA, and presents the first experimental results.