Idaho Cleanup Project completes longest test run

A 50-day demonstration has proven that modifications will allow Fluor-Idaho to move forward with plans to treat waste from an underground tank farm at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory.

The demonstration, at the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU), treated 62,200 gallons of a non-radioactive simulant that mimics the waste stored in an underground tank farm.

The demonstration was aimed at achieving long-term, stable operations of the plant, designed to treat the tank farm’s 900,000 gallons of radioactive waste. It also tested the facility itself, by pushing its ability to recover from off-normal events like temperature and pressure variations.

The test runs also provided data to help finalize remaining environmental permits and confirm the plant’s operating conditions.

Last summer, an earlier demonstration successfully converted more than 53,000 gallons of liquid simulant into a granular solid over a 30-day period.

The IWTU will now go through a several-month outage to make final modifications to prepare the plant for operations.