ABSTRACTGlasses suitable for high-level nuclear waste vitrification must meet a number of requirements including processability, durability, and phase stability. Our new data indicate that the West Valley Reference 5 composition meets these requirements: it is phase stable over the expected range of melter temperatures and residence times, and only minimal (<2 vol %) secondary phase formation, consisting predominantly of iron-group spinels, is expected in the canister cooled glass. Leach tests have shown that the durability of Reference 5 is significantly less sensitive to spinel formation than the earlier Reference 4. However, natural process variations during production will result in a range of glass compositions around the nominal composition. In this paper we report on the effects of composition changes around Reference 5 on the phase stability upon heat treatment and the consequent effects on chemical durability. Since variations in the waste-stream levels of most major components can be accommodated by adjusting the quantities of the glass-forming additives we focus here on a group of components for which this is generally not the case: Ca, Ce, Cr, Mn, Ni, S, and Fe. While many of these components are present at below 1 wt % they could have potentially significant indirect effects on product durability due to enhancement of secondary phase formation. The results provide a data base to support broad (≥300%) tolerance ranges to variation of levels of most of these components. Viscosity data are also reported.
In situ observation of secondary phase formation in Fe implanted GaN annealed in low pressure N2 atmosphere
