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The Hanford site in Washington state is home to one of the greatest concentrations of radioactive wastes in the world mostly generated from plutonium production reactors during the time-frame, 1944–1987. The most significant challenge at Hanford is stabilizing the >50 million U.S. gallons of high-level radioactive waste (HLW) stored in 177 underground tanks. As per the current strategy, the radioactive waste will be blended with glass forming materials and vitrified into borosilicate glasses by pouring the glass melt in stainless steel canisters. The overarching goal of the project is to develop chemically durable waste forms with maximum waste loading.
The problem is that the glasses are prone to crystallize during cooling which may affect the performance of the glass melter as well as the chemical durability of the final product. Therefore, we need to understand the crystallization mechanisms in these glasses in order to avoid their devitrification.
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