The Materials Characterization Center (MCC) at Pacific Northwest Laboratory(a) conducts Nuclear Waste Analytical Round Robins on simulated waste glasses with and without radionuclides. The analytical round robins are used to provide analytical laboratories with a forum for improving the accuracy and precision of analytical techniques that will be used for characterizing nuclear waste glasses. Chemical analysis data on glass waste forms produced by the nuclear waste community may need to withstand legal challenges for waste material storage qualification and for licensing repositories. Determining the quality of analytical data is important for meeting these challenges, making process operation decisions, and predicting long-term waste behavior.

The MCC has conducted six round robins for the waste management, research, and development community from 1987 to the present time. The laboratories that have participated regularly are Ames, Argonne, Catholic University, Lawrence Livermore, Pacific Northwest Laboratory, Savannah River, and West Valley Nuclear. The glass types analyzed in these round robins all have been simulated nuclear waste compositions expected from the vitrification of high-level nuclear waste. A wide range of analytical procedures have been used by the participating laboratories, including Atomic Absorption spectroscopy, inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectro-scopy, direct current plasma-emission spectroscopy, and inductively coupled plasma-mass spectroscopy techniques. The consensus average relative error for Round Robins 1 through 6 is 5.4%, with values ranging from 9.4 to 1.1%. The trend on the average improved with each round robin. When the laboratories analyzed samples over longer periods of time, the intralaboratory variability increased. Lab-to-lab variation accounts for most of the total variability found in all the round robins. To date, participation in the radiochemistry portion has been minimal and the analytical results poor when compared to the nonradiochemistry portion of the round robins. Additional radiochemical work is needed in future round robins.