Research and experimental development services

Tender description

Thermal treatment of PCM wastes demonstrator trials. Sellafield Ltd is assessing the suitability of thermal treatment processes to treat a range of higher activity wastes currently under storage on the Sellafield site, to condition these wastes prior to disposal. This open OJEU Competition relates to establishing the potential benefits offered by thermal treatment processes for the conditioning of Plutonium Contaminated Material (PCM), a challenging and diverse waste stream currently stored in 200 litre steel drums. Thermal treatment of PCM wastes demonstrator trials. Full details of the requirement are in the scope document. The trials are required in order for Sellafield Ltd to determine the viability of thermally processing drummed simulated PCM waste (or pre-treated drummed simulated PCM waste) at 200 litre drum scale. The output of the demonstrator trials will inform Sellafield Ltd of the suitability of the assessed technologies and will inform a future decision on the requirement for a thermal treatment demonstration unit for PCM on the Sellafield site to confirm the technical viability of this particular treatment option. Whilst both the requirement for a demonstrator and the location of such a facility are yet to be determined, suppliers should note that one option could be to locate the facility in the national nuclear laboratory’s central laboratory on the Sellafield site. It is intended that demonstration trial(s) will be completed with one or more technology provider and as a result Sellafield Ltd may award more than one contract and up to a maximum of 4 contracts. A trial may comprise a single drum, several drums to test extremes of PCM envelope, or multiple drums in order to complete a process cycle. Tenderers are requested to specify and fully scope a demonstration trial, or series of trials, on their own technology to the degree necessary to demonstrate the ability of their technology to treat the waste described in the stated feed envelope, including those waste compositions at the extremes of the feed envelope as far as reasonably practicable. The desired final ‘product’ arising from the thermal treatment of PCM would be an immobile vitreous waste form suitable for direct disposal under UK disposal criteria. Should your process require more than one process cycle to achieve this final end state then all necessary process stages should be included in the demonstration proposal. The successful supplier(s) must have equipment available to accept the delivery of pre-prepared drum(s) weighing up to a maximum 100 kg each (likely loaded 4 drums to a transportation pallet), and suitable storage facilities to store the drum(s) in advance of the trial. Trials will be observed by Sellafield Ltd staff and a video record of the trial(s) will be required to be produced by the technology vendor. Trials are to incorporate an assessment of the volumes of any secondary wastes produced by their process.