710818Development of Process Envelope for HotIsostatic Pressing of Radioactive SludgesClosedGRD Proof of ConceptInnovate UKLarge stockpiles of untreated radioactive sludge materials exist globally. The UK’s Sellafield site houses over 5,000 m3 of ILW sludges and slurries. GeoRoc is developing technology to treat these wastes with considerable benefits over the baseline methodology. Advantages include the passivation of the waste, direct immobilisation of radioisotopes, substantial reductions in waste volume and the potential to reduce lifecycle waste management costs. GeoRoc’s Hot-Isostatic Pressing (HIPing) technology is a leading alternative treatment option and has recently been demonstrated at ~1/2 commercial scale, proving the processing of these materials is commercially feasible. GeoRoc Limited have also recently delivered a conceptual plant design to Sellafield Ltd outlining how a HIP plant would be used to treat ILW sludges and slurries. In order to move the technology to the pilot plant stage, a programme of work should first be performed to evaluate the flexibility of the HIP process. This specifically relates to its capacity to a) accommodate the waste-streams’ physical and chemical variations and b) to investigate the properties of uranium doped, radioactive samples. The proposed project will be split into three work packages. The first will systematically investigate the science and materials properties of the wasteform using alterations in the additive formulation. The second will determine the waste processing envelope by investigating the extremes of Sellafield Ltd.’s waste inventory. This will include particle size, carbonate content, organic content, reactive metal content and total waste loading. The final stage of the project will produce and analyse a uranium doped sample to characterise the behaviour of active material during processing. This package of work will provide the proof of concept for the HIP process by bounding the waste treatment envelope, prior to investigation using an operational pilot plant used to prove process fidelity