Design and Licensing of Irradiated Uranyl Nitrate Liquid Containers and Applicable Loading and Packaging System

Irradiated uranyl nitrate liquid (UNL) solutions are typically waste materials resulting from theprocessing of uranium target materials in the production of radioisotopes. Traditionally, these waste materials have been processed and stored at the site of origin, due to the lack of an option for packaging, transportation and disposition. Modern alternatives to process, stabilize, package and dispose of these materials have been developed, but until recently there has not been a viable Type B package solution that could be used to ship these materials in sufficient quantities to justify the cost of an off-site disposition strategy. For this reason, most facilities that generate irradiated UNL materials have implemented on-site storage tanks or containers, resulting in the significant accumulation of UNL inventories worldwide. This paper provides an overview of the design and licensing activities for the development of sealed irradiated UNL transport containers to permit safe transportation of this material in the NAC-LWT cask. A description of the robust UNL container, licensing and fabrication is also presented. In addition, NAC has developed a specialized loading system to optimize the process to load, package and un-package UNL materials to minimize worker exposure during loading, and execute the packaging process efficiently for safe transport and retrieval.