PNNL

Safely treating the Hanford Site’s radioactive tank waste remains one of the nation’s most complex cleanup challenges. Variability in waste feed chemistry and melter off-gas behavior introduces uncertainty that must be clarified in order to provide safe, reliable, and efficient operation of the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP).

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's VItrifiCaTion Off-gas Rig (VICTOR) is an engineering-scale melter and off-gas test platform designed to replicate key WTP operating conditions and produce high-fidelity data to support startup, operations, and risk reduction.

VICTOR's capabilities can be applied beyond Hanford to other thermal treatment processing facilities. View the VICTOR Fact Sheet to learn more.

Mission

Hanford Site tank waste feeds vary widely in chemical composition, physical properties, and redox behavior. These complex differences affect melter heat transfer, glass formulation, off-gas generation, and the performance of downstream systems for both low-activity waste and high-level waste.

The VICTOR platform applies chemical engineering principles to evaluate these effects under controlled conditions, enabling early identification of coupled melter and off-gas behavior and reducing technical risk to operations.

Key Technical Capabilities

Developed in partnership with the Enhanced Waste Glass Program in the Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management’s Hanford Field Office, the VICTOR test platform has a flexible, plug-and-play configuration that allows rapid adaptation to emerging technical needs.

The system integrates several components:

• Feed delivery system
• Engineering-scale melter vessel
• Configurable off-gas treatment system
• Continuous emission monitoring system

The platform produces representative off-gas streams that can be monitored continuously, with sampling periods of up to six hours during melter experiments. The system is capable of running up to 10 tests per year, with at least 4 per year planned.

The current off-gas system includes a venturi scrubber, a high-efficiency mist eliminator, and a submerged bed scrubber. Planned upgrades include a wet electrostatic precipitator, an absorbent system, and components representative of a WTP primary off-gas system.

Testing and Evaluation Focus

The VICTOR platform supports evaluation of key WTP technical challenges, including the following:

• Solids associated with submerged bed scrubbers
• Condensate chemistry and pH control
• Gas polishing efficiency of the wet electrostatic precipitator
• Waste component partitioning in the system and the effect on downstream components