A 40 kW transferred arc plasma melter was designed and built for the vitrification of nuclear waste. Borosilicate glass, high silica glass and sphene glass-ceramic were successfully melted with the waste using an argon plasma in both batch and continuous transferred arc plasma melters. / The use of both direct heating and indirect heating were examined in the continuous plasma melter. The loss of total glass weight and the elemental losses of Na, Cs, U and Nd were examined as a function of operating conditions. The losses of Cs during melting were from 25 to 73 wt% and depended on operating conditions. The loss of Cs during melting could be minimized by decreasing the plasma power, increasing the feed rate, using indirect heating rather than direct heating and choosing suitable waste form. / A heat transfer model and a mass transfer model were developed to analyze cesium losses during melting.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.70289 |
| Date | January 1991 |
| Creators | Chen, GangQiang |
| Contributors | Munz, R. J. (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Chemical Engineering.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001275899, proquestno: AAINN74625, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
Page generated in 0.0017 seconds