PNNL

Nuclear Engineering Division (NED) Planning Meeting

Wednesday, November 8

Contact: Courtney Bottenus

Robert E. Wilson Award

Tuesday, November 7

NED Robert E. Wilson Award Luncheon, followed at 1:30 p.m. by award presentation and lecture

Recipient: Reid Peterson

Karthikeyan Ramasamy

40b – Sustainable Aviation Fuel from Methanol and Ethanol Intermediates

Tuesday, November 7

Summary: Conventional jet fuels derived from fossil sources not only emit substantial carbon dioxide but also contribute to global warming. Consequently, there is a pressing need for sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) that can significantly reduce emissions and promote environmental stewardship. This presentation will discuss the processes to convert methanol (C1) and ethanol (C2) as intermediate feedstocks for SAF production, utilizing thermochemical conversion technologies. Learn more about Karthikeyan Ramasamy's presentation

Phil Schonewill

289b – Transient Behavior of Dead-End Filtration at Low Solids Concentration

Tuesday, November 7

Summary: The Hanford Site’s Direct Feed Low-Activity Waste process performs a pretreatment step prior to planned vitrification in the Low-Activity Waste (LAW) Facility at the Hanford Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant. The pretreatment is performed by the Tank Side Cesium Removal system, which prepares LAW for vitrification by removing solids and cesium-137. The solid removal step is conducted by dead-end filtration and operated in parallel: one is actively processing while the other is flushed and put on standby. Thus, the filters periodically restart from a flushed state when the system swaps between them. Learn more about Phil Schonewill's presentation

Reid Peterson

289c – Investigation into Na and Cs Activity Coefficients in High Salt Solutions to Support Cs Removal in Hanford Tank Waste

Tuesday, November 7

Summary: The treatment of Hanford tank waste is one of the most technically challenging environmental cleanup activities for the Department of Energy to date. To expedite the processing of liquid waste stored in the underground tanks in southeastern Washington State and remove the significant dose contributor, Cs-137, ion exchange with crystalline silicotitanate (CST) has been employed as part of the Tank Side Cesium Removal system. The model used to predict Cs exchange onto CST was developed using activity coefficients calculated from the Bromley equation. A series of batch contact tests from variable Na were conducted to look at the impact of Na concentration on Cs distribution. Learn more about Reid Peterson's presentation

Yuan Jiang

80b – Process Modeling, Techno-Economic and Life-Cycle Assessments of Producing Potentially Carbon-Negative Building Material from CO₂ and Waste Lignin or Lignite

Wednesday, November 8

Summary: Many technologies have been developed to capture CO₂ from point sources and convert it into fuels or chemicals, which typically emit CO₂ at the end of their life. However, there are limited studies of technologies that convert CO₂ into materials that can retain atmospheric carbon in a sequestered form for a long duration. To address this gap, the project team at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory developed an emerging two-step technology to produce a potentially carbon-negative building material from CO₂. Learn more about Yuan Jiang's first presentation

427c – Techno-Economic and Life-Cycle GHG Emission Assessment for Aqueous-Phase Product Treatment and Valorization Options of Wet Waste Hydrothermal Liquefaction Process

Wednesday, November 8

Summary: Waste-to-fuel via hydrothermal liquefaction, a promising technology with high fuel yield and carbon efficiency, can simultaneously decarbonize the transportation sector and reduce the landfill demand. However, a significant amount of carbon and nitrogen in the feedstock (23.2% and 50.4%, respectively) goes to the aqueous phase product and results in an aqueous-phase stream with high chemical oxygen demand. Treatment is required before disposal, of which the cost, utility consumption, and emission can be high when using the conventional activated sludge process in the state-of-the-art design for hydrothermal liquefaction. In this work, four alternative treatment and valorization options were investigated for the hydrothermal liquefaction aqueous-phase product, including two catalytic hydrothermal gasification technologies using different catalysts, steam-phase catalytic reduction of wastewater, and ambient-pressure aqueous-phase catalytic upgrading. Learn more about Yuan Jiang's second presentation

Amy Westesen

162b – Hanford Sludge Washing for Aluminum and Phosphate Dissolution

Wednesday, November 8

Summary: The nuclear waste at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site represents one of the single largest environmental cleanup efforts currently underway. Large volumes of highly radioactive waste, generated during past plutonium production operations, are stored in underground tanks on the Hanford Site. Effective disposition of this waste will require processing the sludge to immobilize the waste via vitrification into a stable glass form for long-term disposal. Conceptual flowsheets have proposed settling of the solids in process vessels as a primary step in providing sludge to the vitrification facility. Wastes with high concentrations of aluminum and phosphate have been identified as particularly challenging to process and simultaneously make up the majority of insoluble components in the sludge. This presentation details low temperature dissolution studies of aluminum and phosphate sludge simulants in a variety of wash matrices mimicking potential retrieval operations. Learn more about Amy Westesen's presentation

Ross Cao

484d – Enabling Gigaton-Scale CO₂ Mineralization and Utilization in Reactive Reservoirs

Wednesday, November 8

Summary: Basalt and ultramafic reservoirs provide the safest geologic carbon storage (GCS) solution through carbon mineralization. Commercial-scale deployment requires coupling the lab-based experiments with reactive transport modeling to derisk the process and fulfill permitting requirements. This work focuses on research and development needed to accelerate adoption of commercial-scale GCS in our mafic and ultramafic active drill sites, including the Columbia River Basalts. We report on storage resource analyses of carbon storage potential in basalt and peridotites, including the potential for critical mineral recovery. Learn more about Ross Cao's presentation