PNNL

Abstract

We have critically compiled and analyzed historical data for investigating the quantity of nepheline (NaAlSiO4) precipitation as a function of composition in simulated nuclear waste glasses. To understand composition we used two primary methods: 1) investigating the Al2O3-SiO2-Na2O ternary with filtering for different B2O3 levels and 2) creating a quadrant system consisting of compositions reduced to two metric numbers. These metrics are 1) the nepheline discriminator (ND) which depends only on the SiO2 content by weight normalized to the total weight of the Al2O3-SiO2-Na2O sub-mixture and 2) the optical basicity (OB) which contains contributions from all constituents in the glass. Nepheline precipitation is expected to be suppressed at high SiO2 levels (ND >0.62) or at low basicities (OB 5 wt% B2O3. The OB concept can help further refine regions of nepheline-free glass formation.