Cold Jet delivers systems to clean up US radioactive waste

Cold Jet, a manufacturer of dry ice blasting and production solutions, is providing two customised integrated dry ice blasting and production systems for the Hanford nuclear waste treatment plant in Hanford, Washington.

Cold Jet was contracted by Wagstaff Applied Technologies, a sub-contractor to Bechtel National. Bechtel is designing, constructing and commissioning the waste treatment plant to dispose of the world’s largest concentration of radioactive waste, left over from US weapons production during the Cold War era.

The waste will be vitrified by blending it with molten glass and placing it in stainless steel canisters to ensure hundreds of years of stable and impermeable storage. Cold Jet’s integrated blasting and pelletiser systems will be part of an automatic weld inspection system installed in the site’s low activity waste facility.

The CO₂ pelletiser will feed the blasting systems, which will clean the welds made to fasten the end caps of the steel canisters so that the welds can be inspected for leaks. The dry ice blast cleaning involves accelerating dry ice pellets at supersonic speeds using compressed air. Once the dry ice pellets hit the surface being cleaned, they sublimate without creating secondary waste. The environmentally responsible process is non-toxic, non-abrasive, and non-conductive.

“One of our strengths is the ability to develop custom solutions that allow organisations to take advantage of the benefits of dry ice blasting,” said Gene Cooke, ceo of Cold Jet.

Hanford was home to nine reactors used during the Cold War era to produce plutonium for new atomic weapons. While plutonium production stopped many years ago, the site now houses some 53 million gallons of radioactive and chemical waste stored underground in 177 underground tanks that were designed to last for only 20 years.