This report summarizes results from all of the membrane testing completed to date at the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) for the sulfur dioxide-depolarized electrolyzer (SDE). Several types of commercially-available membranes have been analyzed for ionic resistance and sulfur dioxide transport including perfluorinated sulfonic acid (PFSA), sulfonated polyether-ketone-ketone (SPEKK), and polybenzimidazole membranes (PBI). Of these membrane types, the poly-benzimidazole membrane, Celtec-L, exhibited the best combination of characteristics for use in an SDE. Several experimental membranes have also been analyzed including hydrated sulfonated Diels-Alder polyphenylenes (SDAPP) membranes from Sandia National Laboratory, perfluorosulfonimide (PFSI) and sulfonated perfluorocyclobutyl aromatic ether (S-PFCB) prepared by Clemson University, hydrated platinum-treated PFSA prepared by Giner Electrochemical Systems (GES) and Pt-Nafion{reg_sign} 115 composites prepared at SRNL. The chemical stability, SO{sub 2} transport and ionic conductivity characteristics have been measured for several commercially available and experimental proton-conducting membranes. Commercially available PFSA membranes such as the Nafion{reg_sign} series exhibited excellent chemical stability and ionic conductivity in sulfur dioxide saturated sulfuric acid solutions. Sulfur dioxide transport in the Nafion{reg_sign} membranes varied proportionally with the thickness and equivalent weight of the membrane. Although the SO{sub 2} transport in the Nafion{reg_sign} membranes is higher than desired, the excellent chemical stability and conductivity makes …

The Safeguards Envelope Project met its milestones by creating a rudimentary safeguards envelope, proving the value of the approach on a small scale, and determining the most appropriate path forward. The Idaho Chemical Processing Plant’s large cache of reprocessing process monitoring data, dubbed UBER Data, was recovered and used in the analysis. A probabilistic Z test was used on a Markov Monte Carlo simulation of expected diversion data when compared with normal operating data. The data regarding a fully transient event in a tank was used to create a simple requirement, representative of a safeguards envelope, whose impact was a decrease in operating efficiency by 1.3% but an increase in material balance period of 26%. This approach is operator, state, and international safeguards friendly and should be applied to future reprocessing plants. Future requirements include tank-to-tank correlations in reprocessing facilities, detailed operations impact studies, simulation inclusion, automated optimization, advanced statistics analysis, and multi-attribute utility analysis.