Reinventing Nuclear Chemical Engineering through Modular Process Intensification and Smart Manufacturing

The Department of Energy (“DOE”) is responsible for the cleanup of the legacy of nuclear weapons production. Beginning with the Manhattan Project and extending over the course of the Cold War, DOE operated a massive industrial chemical complex to produce and separate nuclear materials. DOE utilized the best-in-class chemical companies to research, develop, design, build and operate the chemical complex. Liability law changes and changing business strategies caused these best-in-class chemical companies to exit the DOE businesses. Thus, chemical engineering essentially ceased to advance as a science and applied engineering field within the DOE complex. When the Cold War ended, the integrated operations of the complex were shut down and DOE began the costly long-term effort to clean up the waste resulting from the operations. Over $150B has been spent to date in pursuit of this mission, with the result that cleanup of 91 of the 107 major sites has been completed. With a baseline budget of $6B/year, the cost to complete the cleanup mission is on the order of $300-335B and that cleanup would extend for many decades after 2060. Both DOE and Savannah River National laboratory believe that technology innovation coupled with workforce development in the fields of modular process intensification and smart manufacturing have the potential to decrease capital, operating and final life cycle costs. This presentation will discuss some of the successes achieved to date and discuss SRNL’s efforts to leverage other government investments to replace the loss of chemical engineering knowledge within the DOE Environmental Management and National Nuclear Security Missions.