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Committee on Electrometallurgical Techniques for DOE Spent Fuel Treatment
GREGORY R. CHOPPIN,
Florida State University,
Chair
JOHN F. AHEARNE,
Duke University and Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society
MICHAEL J. APTED,
QuantiSci, Inc.
PATRICIA A. BAISDEN,
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
SOL BURSTEIN,
Wisconsin Electric Power Co. (retired)
EDITH M. FLANIGEN,
UOP (retired)
L. EUGENE MCNEESE,
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
ROBERT A. OSTERYOUNG,
North Carolina State University
JOHN D. SHERMAN,
UOP
JOEL D. WILLIAMS,
Los Alamos National Laboratory
RAYMOND G. WYMER,
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (retired)
Staff
DOUGLAS J. RABER, Director,
BCST
SCOTT T. WEIDMAN, Senior Program Officer
TAMAE M. WONG, Senior Program Officer
MARIA P. JONES, Senior Project Assistant
Board on Chemical Sciences and Technology
ROYCE C. MURRAY,
University of North Carolina,
Co-Chair
JOHN J. WISE,
Mobil Research and Development Corporation,
Co-Chair
HANS C. ANDERSEN,
Stanford University
DAVID C. BONNER,
Westlake Group
PHILIP H. BRODSKY,
Monsanto Company
ROBERT A. BROWN,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MARVIN H. CARUTHERS,
University of Colorado
GREGORY R. CHOPPIN,
Florida State University
MOSTAFA EL-SAYED,
Georgia Institute of Technology
JOANNA S. FOWLER,
Brookhaven National Laboratory
JUDITH C. GIORDAN,
Henkel Corporation
LOUIS C. GLASGOW,
E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company
JOSEPH G. GORDON II,
IBM Almaden Research Center
VICTORIA F. HAYNES,
B.F. Goodrich Company
GEORGE J. HIRASAKI,
Rice University
GARY E. MCGRAW,
Eastman Chemical Company
WAYNE H. PITCHER, JR.,
Genencor Corporation
W. HARMON RAY,
University of Wisconsin
GABOR A. SOMORJAI,
University of California, Berkeley
JOAN S. VALENTINE,
University of California, Los Angeles
DOUGLAS J. RABER, Director
MARIA P. JONES, Senior Project Assistant
SYBIL A. PAIGE, Administrative Associate
SCOTT T. WEIDMAN, Senior Program Officer
TAMAE M. WONG, Senior Program Officer
Commission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and Applications
ROBERT J. HERMANN,
United Technologies Corporation,
Chair
STEPHEN L. ADLER,
Institute for Advanced Study
PETER M. BANKS,
Environmental Research Institute of Michigan
SYLVIA T. CEYER,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
L. LOUIS HEGEDUS,
W.R. Grace and Company
JOHN E. HOPCROFT,
Cornell University
RHONDA J. HUGHES,
Bryn Mawr College
SHIRLEY A. JACKSON,
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
KENNETH I. KELLERMANN,
National Radio Astronomy Observatory
KEN KENNEDY,
Rice University
THOMAS A. PRINCE,
California Institute of Technology
JEROME SACKS,
National Institute of Statistical Sciences
L.E. SCRIVEN,
University of Minnesota
LEON T. SILVER,
California Institute of Technology
CHARLES P. SLICHTER,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
ALVIN W. TRIVELPIECE,
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
SHMUEL WINOGRAD,
IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
CHARLES A. ZRAKET,
MITRE Corporation (retired)
NORMAN METZGER, Executive Director
PREFACE
In July 1995, the Department of Energy (DOE1) asked the National Research Council (NRC) to extend the lifetime of its Committee on Electrometallurgical Techniques for DOE Spent Fuel Treatment in order to provide additional advice. After this additional activity was approved by the NRC, the committee was specifically charged with two tasks. The first was to provide an ongoing evaluation of Argonne National Laboratory's (ANL's) research and development (R&D) activity on electrometallurgical techniques for treatment of DOE spent fuel, including their specific application to EBR-II spent fuel; the committee's activity in this area is continuing. The second task was to evaluate the scientific and technological issues associated with extending this research and development program to handle plutonium, should the DOE decide that an electrometallurgical treatment option for the disposition of excess weapons plutonium is worth pursuing. This report has been prepared in response to the second task.
Three members of the originally appointed committee found that other commitments made them unable to continue service on the committee. These were Fred Basolo (the committee chair), Alfred F. LaCamera, and Lawrence J. Mullins. Consequently, several new members were appointed to the committee. Gregory R. Choppin (previously the committee's liaison from the Board on Chemical Sciences and Technology) was named as the new chair of the committee, and four other experts—John F. Ahearne, Edith M. Flanigen, John D. Sherman, and Joel D. Williams —were named as members to provide expertise in the areas of plutonium disposition, zeolite chemistry, and molten salt processing.
The committee held two meetings (Appendix A) to consider the issues related to extending the ANL R&D program on electrometallurgical techniques to the disposition of excess weapons plutonium. The first meeting was held on October 4-5, 1995, at the National Research Council's facilities in Washington, D.C. During an open session, the committee received briefings from representatives of DOE and ANL. Subsequent discussions by the committee during its executive session led to the formulation of a series of follow-up questions that were posed to ANL. The complete questions and ANL's response are presented in Appendix B.
The committee's second meeting, on December 4-5, 1995, again at the National Research Council's facilities in Washington, D.C., was held largely in executive session to allow the committee to reach consensus and to produce a draft version of its report. Briefings from DOE representatives were heard during an open session of the committee. Additional follow-up questions were sent to ANL during the meeting by fax, and a subsequent videoconference with ANL representatives allowed the committee to obtain additional information. These questions, together with ANL 's written response, are presented in Appendix C.
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The abbreviations used in this report are listed in Appendix E. |