Vitrification plant Karlsruhe

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Plant under construction since early 1999 on the premises of the reprocessing plant Karlsruhe for the vitrification of the around 60 m³ liquid high active waste solution stored there. This waste comes from the operation of the reprocessing plant Karlsruhe where a total of 208 t spent nuclear fuel was reprocessed between 1971 and 1990. The 60 m³ fission product solution contain about 8 t solids, including 504 kg uranium and 16.5 kg plutonium. The total activity of this liquid high active waste amounts presently to about 1,018 becquerel. The glass melting furnace of the vitrification plant is electrically heated and keeps the molten mass bath of a special boron silicate glass at a temperature of approx. 1,150 °C. The liquid waste is added to this bath where the liquid component evaporates and the radioactive solids are embedded in the molten glass mass. The latter containing radioactivity is filled into 1.3 m high 150 l steel containers. Following cooling, the containers are welded gas-tight. This solidification enables a volume reduction from 60 m³to barely 20 m³. The plant is to be commissioned in 2009, the vitrification of the 60 m³ fission product solution is to be completed in 2010.

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