Gas Generation and Hold-Up in Hanford Waste Treatment Plant Process Streams Containing Anti-Foam Agent (AFA)

The Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) is being designed and built to pretreat and vitrify defense wastes stored at the DOE Hanford Site near Richland, Washington. Some of the WTP process streams are slurries that exhibit non-Newtonian rheological behavior. Such streams can accumulate hazardous quantities of thermally and radiolytically generated flammable gases. Experiments were performed in a bubble column to measure gas hold-up under various conditions to better understand flammable gas behavior in WTP processes. The two non-Newtonian slurries tested were kaolin-bentonite clay and a chemical surrogate of pretreated high-level waste (HLW) from Hanford Tank AZ-101. The addition of solutes, whether a salt or anti-foaming agent (AFA) decrease the bubble coalescence rate leading to smaller bubbles, lower bubble rise velocity and higher gas holdup. Gas holdup decreased with increasing yield stress and consistency. The impact of AFA on gas holdup in kaolin-bentonite clay was less than in simulated HLW, presumably because the AFA adsorbed onto the clay particles, rendering it unavailable to retard coalescence.