Mercury Detection and Sampling of Waste Processing Tanks at the Savannah River Site

摘要

The Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) was investigating the removal and recovery of mercury from process tanks within their Chemical Process Cell (CPC). As a part of this investigation, DWPF engineering wanted to determine how much if any, mercury had collected in the bottom of any of the process tanks. Specifically, the tanks that needed to be checked were the Sludge Receipt Adjustment Tank (SRAT), Mercury Water Wash Tank (MWWT), Slurry Mix Evaporator Condensate Tank (SMECT) and Slurry Mix Evaporator (SME) Tank. This was the first step in investigating where the mercury is accumulating and then determining the amount and composition of the mercury that was collecting at the bottom of the tanks. Savannah River National Lab (SRNL) was tasked with the development of a device which could detect the level of mercury within the process tanks and also a sampler which could grab a sample for further testing of the mercury's composition.