An In-situ Investigation of a-AlOOH Dissolution under High pH Conditions
EMSL Project ID
49228
Abstract
The dissolution and precipitation of gibbsite [a-Al(OH)3] and boehmite [a-AlOOH] is of prime importance to the final disposition of high-level nuclear waste (HLW) stored at the Hanford Site. The high aluminum content in the Hanford Tank waste stream is incompatible with current durable glass formulations and needs to be reduced for vitrification. Indeed, boehmite in the Hanford Waste Tanks has been shown to be a much more intractable problem for dissolution than predicted (Peterson et al. 2009; Russell et al., 2009; Snow et al., 2008) and it is the objective of this proposal to discover the reasons why this is the case. In this regard, we propose to study the dissolution of boehmite using in-situ electron microscopy, aberration corrected TEM, vibrational spectroscopy and XPS. Such state-of-the-art techniques have not yet been applied to an industrial problem of this magnitude.
Project Details
Start Date
2016-02-25
End Date
2016-09-30
Status
Closed
Released Data Link
Team
Principal Investigator
Team Members
Related Publications
Chatterjee S, MA Conroy, FN Smith, HJ Jung, Z Wang, RA Peterson, A Huq, DG Burtt, ES Ilton, and EC Buck. 2016." Can Cr(III) substitute for Al(III) in the structure of Boehmite?"RSC Advances 6(109):107628-107637. doi:10.1039/c6ra20234a