Temperature Distribution within a Cold Cap during Nuclear Waste Vitrification.

The kinetics of the feed-to-glass conversion affects the waste vitrification rate in an electric glass melter. The primary area of interest in this conversion process is the cold cap, a layer of reacting feed on top of the molten glass. The work presented here provides an experimental determination of the temperature distribution within the cold cap. Because direct measurement of the temperature field within the cold cap is impracticable, an indirect method was developed in which the textural features in a laboratory-made cold cap with a simulated high-level waste feed were mapped as a function of position using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction. The temperature distribution within the cold cap was established by correlating microstructures of cold-cap regions with heat-treated feed samples of nearly identical structures at known temperatures. This temperature profile was compared with a mathematically simulated profile generated by a cold-cap model that has been developed to assess the rate of glass production in a melter.

One-dimensional simulation of lanthanide isotachophoresis using COMSOL.

Electrokinetic separations can be used to quickly separate rare earth metals to determine their forensic signature. In this work, we simulate the concentration and separation of trivalent lanthanide cations by isotachophoresis. A one-dimensional simulation is developed using COMSOL v4.0a, a commercial finite element simulator, to represent the isotachophoretic separation of three lanthanides: lanthanum, terbium, and lutetium. The binding ligand chosen for complexation with the lanthanides is α-hydroxyisobutyric acid (HIBA) and the buffer system includes acetate, which also complexes with the lanthanides. The complexes formed between the three lanthanides, HIBA, and acetate are all considered in the simulation. We observe that the presence of only lanthanide:HIBA complexes in a buffer system with 10 mM HIBA causes the slowest lanthanide peak (lutetium) to split from the other analytes. The addition of lanthanide:acetate complexes into the simulation of the same buffer system eliminates this splitting. Decreasing the concentration of HIBA in the buffer to 7 mM causes the analyte stack to migrate faster through the capillary.