Quarterly progress report for the Chemical Development Section of the Chemical Technology Division: April--June 1996

This report summarizes the major activities conducted in the Chemical Development Section of the Chemical Technology Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) during the period April--June 1996. The report describes 12 tasks conducted in 4 major areas of research and development within the section. The first major research area--Chemical Processes for Waste Management--includes the following tasks: Comprehensive Supernate Treatment, Partitioning of Sludge Components by Caustic Leaching, Studies on Treatment of Dissolved MVST Sludge Using TRUEX Process, ACT*DE*CON{sup SM} Test Program, Hot Demonstration of Proposed Commercial Nuclide Removal Technology, Sludge Treatment Studies, and Development and Testing of Inorganic Sorbents. Within the second research area--Reactor Fuel Chemistry--a new scope of work for the Technical Assistance in Review of Advanced Reactors task has been established to include assessments of iodine behavior nd pH control in operating nuclear reactor containments as well as in advanced reactor systems. This task is on hold, awaiting finalization of the revised proposal and receipt of the necessary information from Westinghouse to permit the start of the study. Within the third research area--Thermodynamics--the Thermodynamics and Kinetics of Energy-Related Materials task has used a differential thermal analysis (DTA)/thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) to study the phase transitions of phase-pure YBa{sub 2}Cu{sub 3}O{sub 6+x} (123). The fourth major research area--Processes for Waste Management--includes work on these tasks: Ion Exchange Process for Heavy Metals Removal, Hot Cell Cross-Flow Filtration Studies of Gunite Tank Sludges, and Chemical Conversion of Nitrate Directly to Nitrogen Gas: A Feasibility Study