(547b) The NSP Harmonia-Plus Lab Initiative and an Emerging Ultrasonic Separations System for Metal Hydroxide Removal

The Harmonia-Plutonium Science Laboratory (PluS Lab) initiative has a mission to grow and sustain workforce, addressing current nonproliferation needs, and posturing for emerging nonproliferation challenges with targeted fundamental plutonium S&T. Over two talks, this new initiative and examples of future projects carried out in the PluS Lab will be described. One example, illustrated in this presentation, is the development of a continuous, virtually silent benchtop ultrasonic filtration system (UltraSep) for nuclear processing applications. With increasing need throughout the nuclear complex to accelerate nuclear waste processing timelines and reduce worker dose, UltraSep is an emerging technology with the potential to be impactful in this area. The system is simple to operate, has a small footprint, and requires little to no maintenance, making it competitive with conventional membrane filtration and centrifugation technologies and potentially deployable in gloveboxes. UltraSep treats slurries to an ultrasonic standing wave, concentrating the particles and separating them from a clarified filtrate. This work focuses on utilizing UltraSep to separate metal hydroxide particles from caustic aqueous solutions. In tandem, the metal hydroxide slurries are examined using an analytical centrifuge to understand their fundamental properties and establish correlations to their behaviour in the UltraSep system. This presentation will show the results from experiments with cerium, zirconium, and depleted uranium hydroxides, highlighting both their unique particle behaviours and the efficacy of UltraSep in removing them from slurry solutions.

LA-UR-24-24850