Cesium removal demonstration using selected actual waste samples from the Hanford reservation tank farm

Approximately 40 million curies of Cs-137 are currently contained in High Level Waste stored in 177 underground storage tanks at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation near Richland, Washington. A series of actual waste, small-scale column tests were performed to evaluate the performance of a selected ion exchange resin for cesium removal from a range of planned feed streams. These tests demonstrated that the selected cationic resin-SuperLig 644 trademark -has more than adequate resin capacity to treat each of three potential feed streams. Furthermore, tests indicate an acceptable mass transfer zone for each of the three types of feed material, and that the elution of the resin can be accommodated within the design criteria for the proposed Waste Treatment Plant.