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The U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project is committed to meeting all technical and regulatory requirements to safely retrieve, characterize, treat and package transuranic waste for shipment out of Idaho to permanent disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in
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Supercompactor
The AMWTP Supercompactor is the heart of the Treatment Facility. The 62-ton piece of equipment measures eight feet by eight feet at its base and 24 feet in height and was fabricated in Holland.
The Supercompactor was first shipped from Holland to Nashville, TN where it was put through a series of tests. It was then shipped from Tennessee to the AMWTP. The trip from Tennessee to Idaho took five days on a 154-foot truck. Accompanying the truck were eight other semis hauling a 220-ton crane that was used to lift the Supercompactor into its cell.
The Supercompactor plays a key role in the operation of the facility. An estimated 70 percent of the 65,000 cubic meters of waste to be processed is sent through the Supercompactor for size reduction. With a force of 2,000 tons, or 4 million pounds, the Supercompactor can compact a 55-gallon drum to roughly one-fifth its original size. The compacted drum is called a puck.
The Supercompactor glovebox suite performs an automated process, requiring only that employees monitor the glovebox as it receives waste. The Supercompactor receives drums both from the sorting boxline, where waste is sorted, size-reduced and placed in new drums, as well as drums from the Retrieval Enclosure that require no sorting or size-reducing.
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