Report on studies of advanced batteries, aqueous batteries, advanced fuel cells, coal utilization, methodologies for recovery of energy from municipal waste, solid and liquid desiccants, nuclear technology related to waste management, and physical chemistry of selected materials in environments simulating those of fission, fusion, and other energy systems.

In 1973, Argonne National Laboratory began consolidating and upgrading its plutonium-handling operations with the result that the research fuel-fabrication facility located in Building 350 was shut down and declared surplus. Sixteen of the twenty-three gloveboxes which comprised the system were disassembled and relocated for reuse or placed into controlled storage during 1974 but, due to funding constraints, full-scale decommissioning did not start until 1978. Since that time the fourteen remaining contaminated gloveboxes, including all internal and external equipment as well as the associated ventilation systems, have been assayed for radioactive content, dismantled, size reduced to fit acceptable packaging and sent to a US Department of Energy (DOE) transuranic retrievable-storage site or to a DOE low-level nuclear waste burial ground. The project which was completed in 1983, required 5 years to accomplish, 32 man years of effort, produced some 540 cubic meters (19,000 cubic ft) of radioactive waste of which 60% was TRU, and cost 2.4 million dollars.