Premium
Sulfur solubility in low activity waste glass and its correlation to melter tolerance
Author(s) -
Skidmore Chloe H.,
Vienna John D.,
Jin Tongan,
Kim Dongsang,
Stanfill Bryan A.,
Fox Kevin M.,
Kruger Albert A.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
international journal of applied glass science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.383
H-Index - 34
eISSN - 2041-1294
pISSN - 2041-1286
DOI - 10.1111/ijag.13272
Subject(s) - solubility , crucible (geodemography) , sulfur , sulfate , saturation (graph theory) , materials science , salt (chemistry) , henry's law , metallurgy , mineralogy , inorganic chemistry , chemistry , computational chemistry , mathematics , combinatorics
Hanford low‐activity waste (LAW) glasses with high sulfur concentrations are subject to salt segregation in the melter, which hinders melter operation by corroding components and shortening the melter life. To better predict the point at which salt accumulates on the melt surface, the development of sulfate solubility models is needed. Using a sulfur saturation method, crucible scale melts for 13 LAW glasses with varying sulfur solubilities were conducted. The resulting salt and glass compositions were reported and the change in component partitioning following the saturation process was examined to better understand potential changes in overall glass composition. It was shown that both Cr 2 O 3 and Cl experience significant losses, with ~28% of Cr 2 O 3 partitioning into the salt phase and Cl primarily volatilizing out of the melt (~23% partitioned to salt and ~40% lost as off gas). These patterns can be accounted for during model development. Measured sulfur solubilities were also compared to previously reported data. It was found that crucible sulfur solubility ranged from 0.95 to 2.14 wt% SO 3 with a high correlation ( [ R fit 2 = 0.94 ] ) between crucible solubility and melter tolerance. These results suggest that crucible scale sulfate solubility data can be used to predict SO 3 tolerance in the melter feed.