Development of Data-Driven and Model-Based Tools for Spectroscopic Slurry Monitoring: Case Studies on Low-Activity and High-Level Nuclear Waste
Author(s)
Crouse, Steven Howard
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Abstract
Nuclear waste is challenging to store, handle, and process. The United States Department of Energy is currently (as of August 2025) building a waste treatment plant to vitrify waste at the Hanford site, and there has been increasing interest in the use of real-time and remote spectroscopic sensors for monitoring radioactive waste at this and other sites. However, there are significant technological hurdles preventing the immediate application of spectroscopic sensors to nuclear waste. The radioactive waste is a multicomponent, inhomogeneous, multiphase, and radioactive slurry with the potential for ongoing chemical/nuclear reactions and batch-varying particle morphology. Spectroscopic sensors have seen regular use in laboratory-scale reaction monitoring, not industrial nuclear-waste processing. There remain many unsolved questions and unconquered hurdles precluding the use of spectroscopic sensors for a safer, more efficient, and more robust nuclear-waste processing outlook.
This thesis introduces methods, shows data, and presents studies for monitoring multicomponent solutions, quantifying signal attenuation in slurries, and utilizing data for real-time fault detection in multicomponent slurries. Given the legacy of nuclear waste that has been left for current and future generations, this thesis moves the scientific literature forward to enable safe and efficient nuclear-waste processing using the most appropriate methods, whether those methods exist or require development.
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Date
2025-09-23
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Dissertation (PhD)