A review on immobilization of phosphate containing high level nuclear wastes within glass matrix – Present status and future challenges

Abstract

Immobilization of phosphate containing high level nuclear wastes within commonly used silicate glasses is difficult due to restricted solubility of P₂O₅ within such melts and its tendency to promote crystallization. The situation becomes more adverse when sulfate, chromate, etc. are also present within the waste. To solve this problem waste developers have carried out significant laboratory scale research works in various phosphate based glass systems and successfully identified few formulations which apparently look very promising as they are chemically durable, thermally stable and can be processed at moderate temperatures. However, in the absence of required plant scale manufacturing experiences it is not possible to replace existing silicate based vitrification processes by the phosphate based ones. A review on phosphate glass based wasteforms is presented here.