Treatment of Metal Waste by Melting

Summary

Possibilities in melting are listed under four operation types. Work done by BSC is essentially of the reclaim of metal kind. That by Siempelkamp is largely aimed at waste conditioning under the volume reduction heading and for Seri the aim was waste conditioning by separation of radioactivities. At BSC, steel components removed from several kinds of reactor and designated as waste, have been melted and the metal reclaimed. This was in ordinary furnaces and done without radiological hazards.

At Séri the possibilities for cobalt removal from stainless steel were examined. Electroslag refining was seen as a promising process but no slag was found to take cobalt sufficiently into solution for worthwhile separation. Another study was on retention of cobalt in the metal phase in controlled oxidation of stainless steel. Too much cobalt was included in the oxidation product for worthwhile separation.

At Siempelkamp work is being done on the design and testing of a small furnace system for enclosed melting and ingot casting from radioactive steel waste. The main purpose is to achieve high volume reduction for most efficient storage/disposal of high radioactivity waste. The system enclosure and filtration have shown promise.