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Languages : en
Pages : 5
Book Description
The U.S. Department of Energy will immobilize excess plutonium in the proposed Plutonium Immobilization Plant (PIP) at the Savannah River Site (SRS) as part of a two track approach for the disposition of weapons-usable plutonium. The Department of Energy is funding the development and testing effort for the PIP being conducted by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Westinghouse Savannah River Company (WSRC), Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), and Argonne National Laboratory (ANL). The PIP will utilize the ceramic can-in-canister technology in a process that mixes plutonium and uranium with ceramic formers and neutron absorbers, presses the mixture into a ceramic puck-like form, and sinters the pucks in a furnace. Once sintered, the pucks are loaded into cans, then cans are placed into magazines, and magazines are inserted into large canisters. The canisters will subsequently be filled with high-level waste glass in the Defense Waste Processing Facility for eventual disposal in a geologic repository. The PIP project is currently being suspended due to budget constraints. The suspension requires documenting the current status of all systems under development including the Can Loading Vision System and the Puck Handling Vision System. This report provides this documentation.