Transforming Waste Into Glass: Vitrification Processes to Stabilize Radioactive Waste

GeoMelt® vitrification destroys organic wastes and immobilizes radionuclides and heavy metals in an ultra-stable glass similar to obsidian and typically 10 times stronger than concrete.

 Why use waste vitrification technology?
The GeoMelt® vitrification process offers significant advantages for radioactive and hazardous waste treatment and site remediation:

  • Commercially proven at large scale
  • Produces a superior chemically and mechanically durable waste form
  • Scalability, flexibility, simplicity, and high waste loading improves project economics , reduces lifecycle costs and reduces worker risk by minimizing handling of waste
  • Simultaneous processing of mixed organic, inorganic, reactive metal and radioactive wastes
  • High radionuclide retention
  • Permitted by the US EPA for treatment of PCBs (99.9999% proven destruction and removal efficiency)

Provide varied fit-to-purpose technologies to rise to all the challenges

The GeoMelt® Systems can be an In-Situ vitrification technology ideal for soil, solid wastes and debris but also an In-Container vitrification technology ideal for waste streams. This is a unique commingling of wastes to utilize glass-forming capabilities of one stream to stabilize other.

Veolia Nuclear Solutions has also developed a Modular Vitrification System (MVS®). A single-cycle hot-wall inductively heated in-container system where the heating range from ambient to 2000°C, providing only in-class flexibility to melt below volatizing temperature of many isotopes or at very high temps for high waste loading.

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In support of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) mission to remediate and restore U.S. Defense facilities, our access robotics and waste Separation & Stabilization technologies have been deployed with great effect.
Veolia Nuclear Solutions has designed a Modular Vitrification System (MVS®) to stabilize liquid waste, while GeoMelt® is ideal for solid waste and debris.
Veolia Nuclear Solutions’ GeoMelt® technologies are a group of vitrification processes that are configured in a variety of ways to meet a wide range of radioactive and hazardous waste treatment and remediation needs.