In a recent post, Hanford 3 – New Problems, I talked about a lump of radioactive waste that had been found between the inner and outer shells of tank AY-102. There have been many DOE funded studies of the contents of that tank. Here are some of the findings.
Nuclear reactors require a huge continuous flow of water for cooling. There are a number of problems connected to this.
The Hanford nuclear facility contains fifty three million gallons of high-level radioactive and chemical waste. These wastes were generated when corrosive chemicals were used to dissolve spent fuel rods to retrieve plutonium. Steel tanks in concrete pits are used to hold the waste.
Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number of 28. It is a slivery-white transition metal. Nickel was used as early as 3500 BC as part of a nickel-iron alloy found in meteorites. Nickel was first purified and identified by Axel Fredrik Crosntedt in 1751. It was named for Nickel, a mischievous creature in German Miner mythology.
Krypton is a chemical element with symbol Kr and atomic number 36. Krypton is a colorless, odorless, tasteless gas. It was discovered by the Scottish chemist Sir William Ramsey in 1898. He discovered a series of noble gases by examining the residue left over from evaporating liquefied air.
Promethium is a chemical element with the symbol Pm and atomic number 61. A gap in the periodic table was pointed out between neodymium at 60 and samarium at 62 by Bohuslav Brauner. After two false claims of discovery in 1926, in 1938 a few atoms of promethium were created but intentional production and chemical proof did not happen until 1945 at Ohio State University when promethium was extracted from irradiated uranium fuel. A sample of the metal was only produced in 1963.
Californium is a chemical element with the symbol Cf and atomic number 98. It is a silvery white actinide metal element that was first synthesized by bombardment of curium with alpha particles by a team at the University of California, Berkeley in 1950 and named for the state of California.
Technetium is a chemical element with the symbol Tc and atomic number 43. It is a silvery gray, crystalline transition metal in the same column of the periodic table as manganese, rhenium and bohrium. Early forms of Mendeleyev’s periodic table showed a gap above manganese and Mendeleyev predicted many of its properties from its position in the table in 1871.
Carbon is a chemical element with the symbol C and the atomic number 6. It has been known since ancient times. Graphite was named in 1594 by D.L.G. Harsten and A.G. Werner. Carbon was named by A.L. Lavoisier in 1789. It is a member of the non-metallic tetravalent (having 4 valence electrons) Group 14 in the periodic table which also includes silicon, germanium, tin, lead and flervium.
Strontium is a chemical element with symbol Sr and atomic number 38. It was discovered in 1790 by Adair Crawford, a physician, in ore taken from lead mines in the village of Strontian, Scotland and named after the village.
