Hanford Site processes associated with the chemical separation of plutonium from uranium and other fission products produced a variety of volatile, semivolatile, and nonvolatile organic and inorganic waste chemicals that were sent to high-level waste tanks. These chemicals have undergone and continue to undergo radiolytic and thermal reactions in the tanks to produce a wide variety of degradation reaction products. The origins of the organic wastes, the chemical reactions they undergo, and their reaction products have recently been examined by Stock (2004). Stock gives particular attention to explaining the presence of various types of volatile and semivolatile organic species identified in headspace air samples. This report complements the Stock report by examining the storage of volatile and semivolatile species in the waste, their transport through any overburden of waste to the tank headspaces, the physical phenomena affecting their concentrations in the headspaces, and their eventual release into the atmosphere above the tanks.
Revised: January 17, 2011 |
Published: August 31, 2004