Featured Photo: Trapped for thousands of years

News Brief

July 14, 2017

• Eric Francavilla, PNNL, (509) 372-4066

RICHLAND, Wash. - The molten glass pictured here is eleven times hotter than boiling water. Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Lab mix the heated silica sand and chemicals with radioactive waste, a process called vitrification. Once the mixture cools, it can safely trap the waste for thousands of years. The researchers designed this process for radioactive waste currently kept in aging underground tanks at the Hanford Location in southeastern Washington.

The glass here shows only a fraction of the technology's potential. Dual melters can pump out 30,000 kilograms of glass in a single day. That's as massive as 6 elephants.

Learn more about vitrification, and how the Pacific Northwest National Lab helps Hanford cleanup, from this column written by Lab Director Steven Ashby.

Tags: Environment, National Security, Environmental Remediation

Interdisciplinary teams at Pacific Northwest National Lab address many of America's most pressing issues in energy, the environment and national security through advances in basic and applied science. Founded in 1965, PNNL employs 4,400 staff and has an yearly budget of nearly $1 billion. It is managed by Battelle for the D.O.E.'s Office of Science. As the single biggest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, the Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information on PNNL, visit the PNNL News Center, or follow PNNL on Facebook, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter.

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