Cementation and solidification of miscellaneous mixed wastes at the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site

The Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site produces a variety of wastes which are amenable to micro-encapsulation in cement Portland cement is an inexpensive and readily available material for this application. The Waste Projects (WP) group at Rocky Flats evaluated cementation to determine its effectiveness in encapsulating several wastes. These included waste analytical laboratory solutions, incinerator ash, hydroxide precipitation sludge, and an acidic solution from the Delphi process (a chemical oxidation technology being evaluated as an alternative to incineration). WP prepared surrogate wastes and conducted designed experiments to optimize the cement formulation for the waste streams. These experiments used a Taguchi or factorial experimental design, interactions between the variables were also considered in the testing. Surrogate waste samples were spiked with various levels of each of six Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) listed metals (Cd, Cr, Ba, Pb, Ni, and Ag), cemented using the optimized formulation, and analyzed for leach resistance using the Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure (TCLP). The metal spike levels chosen were based on characterization data, and also based on an estimate of the highest levels of contaminants suspected in the waste. This paper includes laboratory test results for each waste studied. These include qualitative observations as well as quantitative data from TCLP analyses and environmental cycling studies. The results from these experiments show that cement stabilization of the different wastes can produce final waste forms which meet the current RCRA Land Disposal Restriction (LDR) requirements. Formulations that resulted in LDR compliant waste forms are provided. The volume increases associated with cementation are also lower than anticipated. Future work will include verification studies with actual mixed radioactive waste as well as additional formulation development studies on other waste streams.