Thermal treatment for radioactive waste minimisation and hazard reduction

ended

Safe management of radioactive waste is challenging to waste producers and waste management organisations. Deployment of thermal treatment in an optimised waste management lifecycle can provide significant volume reduction, waste passivation and organics destruction, with benefits for waste storage and safety cases for geological disposal. Relevant technologies include in-container vitrification, gasification, plasma treatment and hot isostatic pressing. THERAMIN aims in utilisation of all these methods. THERAMIN will provide an EU-wide strategic review and assessment of the value of thermal technologies applicable to a broad range of waste streams (ion exchange media, soft operational wastes, sludge, organics and liquids). THERAMIN will compile an EU-wide database of thermally treatable wastes, will document the strategic benefits of thermal treatment, and will identify the opportunities, synergies, challenges, timescales and cost implications to improve radioactive waste management. THERAMIN will evaluate the applicability and achievable volume reduction of the technologies through ‘first-of-a-kind’ active and non-active full-scale demonstration tests, and will assess the disposability of residues. The project benefits from the large investments made by partners in thermal treatment R&D facilities, which will be used to maximise the benefit across Member states. THERAMIN will benefit from close engagement with an End User Group (waste producers and waste management organisations). The partners will encourage the mobility and training of staff for the development of the next generation of engineers and scientists, and the proposal includes a technical training workshop, a scientific conference, and use of other dissemination tools. THERAMIN will establish a pan-European network of expertise on thermal treatment, will provide for cross-European technology transfer, and will identify prospects for sharing of facilities between countries facing similar problems.