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4143373 
Technical Report 
Savannah River Site Tank 48H Waste Treatment Project: Technology Readiness Assessment 
Harmon, HD; Berkowitz, JB; Devine, JC; Sutter, HG; Young, JK 
2007 
NTIS/10570130 
GRA and I 
GRA and I 
The purpose of this assessment was to determine the technology maturity level of the candidate Tank 48H treatment technologies that are being considered for implementation at DOE' Savannah River Site (SRS). Tank 48H is a 1.3 million gallon tank, one of 49 tanks at SRS still containing high level waste (HLW). One of DOE's primary missions at SRS is to process the remaining HLW and close tanks. However, the tank has been isolated from the system and unavailable for use since 1983, because its contents approximately 250,000 gallons of salt solution containing Cesium-137 (Cs-137) and other radioisotopes are contaminated with significant quantities of tetraphenylborate (TPB), a material which can release benzene vapor to the tank head space in potentially flammable concentrations. It is therefore an important element of the DOE-SR mission to remove, process and dispose of the contents of Tank 48H, both to eliminate the hazard it presents to the SRS H-Tank farm and to make possible Tank 48H return to service, to support ongoing HLW SRS processing and orderly tank closures. To that end, the Washington Savannah River Company (WSRC), the SRS prime contractor, has evaluated alternatives and selected two processes, Wet Air Oxidation (WAO) and Fluidized Steam Bed Reforming (FBSR) as candidates for Tank 48H processing. Over the past year WSRC has been sponsoring and reviewing the results of testing of these two processes, and is nearing a final selection.