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Plutonium Finishing Plant in 2012
The Plutonium Finishing Plant, also known as "Z Plant", was part of the Hanford Site plutonium production complex in Washington state. During World War II, Hanford produced plutonium nitrate, which shipped to the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory, where it was turned into metallic plutonium which was made into pits for nuclear weapons. After the war ended, the Los Alamos Laboratory moved to divest itself of production activities in order to devote the site exclusively to research. The Plutonium Finishing Plant was built at Hanford to carry out the purification and reduction of the plutonium to metallic form, known as "buttons", and then perform the casting, grinding and lathing of the plutonium to turn it into pits.
The plant operated from 1949 to 1989. In 1953, it began shipping plutonium buttons to the new Rocky Flats Plant in Colorado, which fabricated pits. Plutonium production peaked in 1965, when 4,500 kilograms was produced. Between 1957 and 1961, nine different types of pits were produced at Hanford. Pit production ended in 1965, when the Atomic Energy Commission announced that all pit fabrication work would be undertaken at the Rock Flats Site. As demand for weapons-grade plutonium declined after 1964, the Plutonium Finishing Plant began producing mixed plutonium-oxide uranium-oxide (MOX) fuel for Hanford's Fast Flux Test Facility and reactor-grade plutonium.
Before the plant could be demolished, approximately 18 metric tons of plutonium-bearing material was stabilized between 1996 and 2004. Legacy plutonium from plant systems was removed by 2005, and all weapons-grade plutonium was shipped to the Savannah River Site by 2009. Demolition work on the plant began in 2017 and was completed in 2022.
The plutonium was then delivered to the 231-Z Plutonium Isolation Building in the form of 8-U.S.-gallon (30L) batches of plutonium nitrate (Pu(NO3)2) in solution. This was further purified with hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) to separate the plutonium nitrate from its carrier and create what was called "AT solution". This was dried out, packaged in containers, and shipped to the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory, where it was made into metallic plutonium and then formed into hemispheres for use in nuclear weapons.[3][4]
After the war ended, the Manhattan District began considering enhancements to the production processes.[4][5] At the same time, there was a desire to relieve the Los Alamos Laboratory of engineering and production responsibilities.[6] The new director of the Los Alamos Laboratory, Norris Bradbury, hoped to devote the site exclusively to research, but its CMR (Chemistry and Metallurgy Research) Division was fully occupied producing components and materials for nuclear weapons.[7] The new operator of the HEW, General Electric, was asked to design a new facility that would handle the rest of the plutonium finishing process. This involved the conversion plutonium nitrate to plutonium oxalate (Pu(C2O4)2, then plutonium dioxide (PuO2), and finally into metallic plutonium suitable for use in weapons and safer to transport long distances to the weapons assembly facilities.[4][5][8]
On 1 January 1947, the Hanford Site, along with the other nuclear weapons production facilities, passed to the control of the newly established Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). The AEC embarked on a program of expanding the facilities in response to the tensions of the Cold War. This included accelerating the design and construction of the proposed Plutonium Finishing Plant.[4][5][9]
Design and construction
In December 1946, a representative from General Electric visited the plutonium finishing and fabricating facility at the Defense Production (DP) West Building at the Los Alamos Laboratory to study it operation. Company representatives paid Los Alamos a second visit in the spring of 1947, and a design feasibility report was issued in July.[5] The design of the Plutonium Finishing Plant was based on it, but incorporated several improvements. At Los Alamos, the operators manipulated the plutonium using rubber gloves inside a glove box, but to cater for the greater volume of plutonium to be processed and consequent higher safety standards, the design called for Part I of the operation, the purification and reduction of the plutonium to metallic form, to be carried out by a mechanized process. Part II of the process would be casting, grinding and lathing the plutonium into pits.[10]
200 West Area looking south towards Rattlesnake Mountain. The Plutonium Finishing Plant is marked as PFP.
In August 1947 General Electric recommended that the Plutonium Finishing Plant be located within the fence of the 231-Z Plutonium Isolation Building, where it could use the existing boiler, water filtration, electricity, telephone, warehouse, road and guard facilities. These all had to be expanded and extended to accommodate the new facility, but this was cheaper than building new ones. Plans initially called for Part I to be carried out in one building (234) and Part II in another (235) but in November General Electric decided to place them both in one building (which became 234-5Z) so the plutonium would be confined in glove boxes throughout the finishing process.[11][12]
Another deviation from the original design was the substitution of a manual process for a mechanized one. The facility was originally scheduled to open in late 1949, but in February 1948 the AEC communicated that it wanted the facility operational by 1 January 1949. In order to meet this deadline, General Electric decided to implement an interim rubber glove (RG) line akin to that used at Los Alamos, while continuing work on a remote, mechanized (RM) line.[11][12]
Construction commenced in June 1948, when the concrete foundations and footings were poured. Work was also carried out on a new railroad spur and an extension to the 284-W Boiler House.[13][12] Works involved 4,670 feet (1,420m) of telephone lines, about 6,700 feet (2,000m) of steam lines, 1,211 feet (369m) of underground water pipes and 26,000 feet (7,900m) of air ducts. There was also a 20,000-US-gallon (76,000L)septic tank and 380 square yards (320m2) of gravel roadway.[14] For security reasons, instrumentation earmarked for the Plutonium Finishing Plant was stored in the warehouse in White Bluffs. Tests were conducted in glove boxes in the 231-Z Building to establish procedures to be used in the new facility, using Karo syrup instead of AT solution.[13][12]
Layout of the Plutonium Finishing Plant
By the scheduled start up date of 1 January 1949, work on the 234-5Z Building was only 55 percent complete. Ten of the thirty process glove boxes had been installed, and the first group of operations personnel were being trained. The start up date was pushed back to 1 March. A 16-day strike by electrical works in March and April further delayed completion. The building was handed over between 29 April and 6 May, and a full complement of 27 operators were trained by the middle of the month. Test runs were conducted to verify the equipment and procedures.[13][12]
As built, the 234-5Z Building was 500 feet (150m) long and 180 feet (55m) wide. It had a steel frame surrounded by aluminum sheeting with rock wool insulation and 16-gauge steels. The floors of the two storeys were concrete slabs. Some of the interior walls were reinforced concrete. The first floor contained the processing line, an analytical laboratory and storage vaults for the plutonium. The second floor contained changing rooms, locker rooms, a lunch room, conference room and offices.[14] Hanford personnel called it the Z Plant, because it was the last step in the production process.[12]
Operations
The Plutonium Finishing Plant commenced production operations on 5 July 1949. The RG line consisted of 28 glove boxes operated by three shifts of operators who worked Monday to Friday. Training was not yet complete and the equipment was not fully functional. Negative air pressure was supposed to prevent airborne contamination, but samples taken in the processing area and the analytical laboratory were high enough to compel the operators to wear gas masks. Plutonium production fell short of the targets set by the AEC. On 24 October, the AEC called for increased production on the RG line, and authorized construction of a second RM line, although the first was still not operational. The two would become known as the RMA and RMB lines.[15]
A plutonium button
Although the RMA line was intended to commence operations in 1951, start up was delayed by an AEC requirement to produce a different model pit, and operations did not commence until 18 March 1952. The RMA line included 30 stainless steel glove boxes, 30 control desks, 10 control cubicles, 24 instrument panels, 9 resistance furnaces, 5 induction furnaces and a 100-foot (30m) conveyor belt. The RMA line was soon out-producing the RG line,[16] and in 1953 RG line modernization was abandoned in favor of improvements to the RMA line.[12]
The RMB line began shakedown tests on 17 May 1952,[15] but due to improvement in the RMA line, the RMB line became obselete before it was completed, and it never processed any plutonium.[17] A third RM line (RMC) was authorized in 1957,[15] and workers removed the RMB line when they installed the RMC line,[18] which became operational in October 1960.[15] In the early months of 1953, the RG line handled only 5 to 6 percent of the plutonium nitrate sent the Plutonium Finishing Plant, and produced no pits. In 1955, the RG line equipment was removed and buried.[16] The space where the RG and RMB lines had stood was used by the RMC line, which cost almost $1.9million (equivalent to $19.57million in 2023). The RMC line was soon producing 80 percent of the plutonium buttons. It ran seven days week, operated by shifts of four to six operators and a line manager.[19]
The AEC raised production quotas in September 1953, and the Hanford Site began shipping plutonium buttons to the new Rocky Flats Plant in Colorado, which fabricated pits from plutonium buttons. The following year the Savannah River Site became operational. The finishing plant at the Savannah River Site did not manufacture pits, but just buttons, which it shipped to Rocky Flats.[18] In 1949, the Plutonium Finishing Plant produced about 750 kilograms of plutonium; in 1959, some 3,500 kilograms were produced.[15] Between 1957 and 1961, nine different types of pits were produced.[18] In 1960, with the RMC line operational, more than 4,000 kilograms was produced. Production peaked in 1965, when 4,500 kilograms was produced.[15] The high production volume tended to saturate the air filters, with the result that a daily average of 18 microcuries (670kBq) of plutonium was detected in stack releases in July 1957. This rose to 117 microcuries (4,300kBq) in December, and 182 microcuries (6,700kBq) by late 1958. A program of filter inspection and replacement was instituted, but daily averages remained high into 1959.[20]
Hanford plutonium production
On 8 January 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson announced a reduced national requirement for nuclear weapons materials due to the large stockpile and the 1963 Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which ended atmospheric nuclear testing. Hanford began shutting down its production reactors, and RMA line was taken out of service by the end of the year. In 1965, the AEC announced that all pit fabrication work would henceforth be undertaken at the Rock Flats Site. With spare capacity, the plant managers began taking on non-defense related work. At midnight on 31 December 1965, General Electric handed over management of the Hanford Site to chemical processing facilities, including the Plutonium Finishing Plant, to Isochem. On 5 September 1965, the Atlantic Richfield Hanford Company (ARHCO) took over. The RMA line was reactivated to produce mixed plutonium-oxide uranium-oxide (MOX) fuel for Hanford's Fast Flux Test Facility, while the RMC line processed fuel-grade plutonium from the N Reactor. The AEC was succeeded the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA) in 1975, and it replaced ARHCO with Rockwell.[21]
The Reagan administration initiated another nuclear arms buildup in 1989 and the Department of Energy (which succeeded the ERDA in 1977) restarted Hanford's PUREX plant. Plans were made to handle its product with the RMA line if the new N Cell facility at the PUREX plant could not process the plutonium nitrate into plutonium oxide. However the N Cell worked fine, and the RMA line was shut down for good in 1984. The RMC line was restarted on 1 July 1985, and ran until October. After multiple repairs, it was reactivated in April 1986 and produced weapons-grade plutonium for the next six months. Another shutdown for a series of upgrades and repairs followed. The RMC line produced plutonium again from July 1988 to June 1989, when it was shut down for the last time.[22][23]
Other activities
Non-defense work
It also participated in programs to recycle plutonium. One of the projects was the use of mixed plutonium-oxide uranium-oxide (MOX) fuel in the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF). For that project, one of the PFP's tasks was to perform quality assurance for the fuel pins that had been constructed for the FFTF by outside vendors, such as Kerr-McGee, NUMEC, and Babcock & Wilcox.[24]
Analytical laboratories
The major activities at PFP generally included:
Created plutonium 'buttons', used to make weapons, until 1989[25]
Special nuclear material handling and storage
Plutonium recovery
Plutonium conversion
Laboratory support
Waste handling
Shutdown and operational facility surveillances.[25]
Recovery and recycling of plutonium
Plutonium Reclamation Facility
Produced 'high purity plutonium nitrate solution' from a 'variety of feed sources, including scrap'.[25] Started in 1964.[26]
Waste Treatment Facility
Neutralized liquid nuclear waste before it was pumped to Hanford's Tank Farms[25]
Incinerator
Burned old clothes, filters, etc. to recover plutonium residue
Other
RECUPLEX (Recovery of Uranium and Plutonium by Extraction) process, Plutonium recovery and recycle. Contaminated the ground with carbon tetrachloride and acidic wastes contaminated with plutonium.[27]
Cleanup and demolition
Before the last four major facilities at the plant could be demolished, approximately 18 metric tons of plutonium-bearing material was stabilized between 1996 and 2004. Legacy plutonium from plant systems was removed by 2005;[28] and all weapons-grade plutonium was shipped out of the plant to the Savannah River Site by 2009.[29] Some 238 large pieces of contaminated equipment, including glove boxes and fume hoods, and approximately 50 plutonium processing tanks, were removed.[30] Numerous plant support facilities, including the vault complex used for secure storage of plutonium, were demolished by 2012.[31] That preparatory work has been called the most hazardous cleanup work at the Hanford Site and PFP has been called Hanford's most hazardous building.[32]
Demolition of the Plutonium Finishing Plant at the Hanford Site
The Department of Energy's PFP Closure Project intended to have the entire facility cleaned and destroyed down to a concrete slab in 2017,[33] with all contaminated materials moved to other sites.[24] Open-air demolition of the plant's last four remaining major facilities began in November 2016[34] on the plant's Plutonium Reclamation Facility. Demolition of the second major facility, the Americium Recovery Facility, also known as the "McCluskey Room" because of a facility accident in 1976, began in January 2017,[35] and was completed in March 2017.[36] Demolition of the third remaining major facility, the ventilation stack and fan house, was completed in July 2017.[37] Demolition of the last of four major remaining facilities, the Main Processing Facility, began in July 2017.[38]
In December 2017, demolition was put on hold after contamination was found as far away as 10 miles (16km) from the site and found in two car air filters that were checked by a Hanford contractor and deemed clean, but when rechecked by an independent lab were found to have small amounts of radioactive contamination.[39] Work restarted in 2019,[40] and all demolition and cleanup work was completed in November 2021.[41] The final activities involved the safe removal and disposal of the rubble. The PFP Closure Project was completed in January 2022.[42]
The Manhattan Project was a research and development program undertaken during World War II to produce the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States in collaboration with the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project was directed by Major General Leslie Groves of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer was the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory that designed the bombs. The Army program was designated the Manhattan District, as its first headquarters were in Manhattan; the name gradually superseded the official codename, Development of Substitute Materials, for the entire project. The project absorbed its earlier British counterpart, Tube Alloys, and subsumed the program from the American civilian Office of Scientific Research and Development. The Manhattan Project employed nearly 130,000 people at its peak and cost nearly US$2 billion, over 80 percent of which was for building and operating the plants that produced the fissile material. Research and production took place at more than 30 sites across the US, the UK, and Canada.
The Hanford Site is a decommissioned nuclear production complex operated by the United States federal government on the Columbia River in Benton County in the U.S. state of Washington. It has also been known as SiteW and the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. Established in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project, the site was home to the Hanford Engineer Works and B Reactor, the first full-scale plutonium production reactor in the world. Plutonium manufactured at the site was used in the first atomic bomb, which was tested in the Trinity nuclear test, and in the Fat Man bomb used in the bombing of Nagasaki.
The Rocky Flats Plant was a United States manufacturing complex that produced nuclear weapons parts near Denver, Colorado. The facility's primary mission was the fabrication of plutonium pits, the fissionable part of a bomb that produces a nuclear explosion. The pits were shipped to other facilities to be assembled into complete nuclear weapons. Operated from 1952 to 1992 by private contractors, Dow Chemical Company, Rockwell International Corporation and EG&G, the complex was under the control of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), succeeded by the Department of Energy (DOE) in 1977. The plant manufactured 1,000 to 2,000 pits per year.
The Savannah River Site (SRS) is a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) reservation in the United States, located in the state of South Carolina on land in Aiken, Allendale, and Barnwell counties adjacent to the Savannah River. It lies 25 miles (40 km) southeast of Augusta, Georgia. The site was built during the 1950s to refine nuclear materials for deployment in nuclear weapons. It covers 310 square miles (800 km2) and employs more than 10,000 people.
The B Reactor at the Hanford Site, near Richland, Washington, was the first large-scale nuclear reactor ever built. The project was a key part of the Manhattan Project, the United States nuclear weapons development program during World War II. Its purpose was to convert natural uranium metal into plutonium-239 by neutron activation, for use in nuclear weapons. This was done because it is simpler to chemically separate plutonium from spent fuel assemblies than it is to isotopically enrich uranium into weapon-grade material. The B reactor was fueled with metallic natural uranium, graphite moderated, and water-cooled. It has been designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark since 19 August 2008 and in July 2011 the National Park Service recommended that the B Reactor be included in the Manhattan Project National Historical Park commemorating the Manhattan Project. Visitors can take a tour of the reactor by advance reservation.
PUREX is a chemical method used to purify fuel for nuclear reactors or nuclear weapons. PUREX is the de facto standard aqueous nuclear reprocessing method for the recovery of uranium and plutonium from used nuclear fuel. It is based on liquid–liquid extraction ion-exchange.
Uranium-233 is a fissile isotope of uranium that is bred from thorium-232 as part of the thorium fuel cycle. Uranium-233 was investigated for use in nuclear weapons and as a reactor fuel. It has been used successfully in experimental nuclear reactors and has been proposed for much wider use as a nuclear fuel. It has a half-life of 160,000 years.
Harold Ralph McCluskey was a chemical operations technician at the Hanford Plutonium Finishing Plant located in Washington State; he is known for having survived exposure to the highest dose of radiation from americium ever recorded. He became known as the "Atomic Man".
The N-Reactor was a water/graphite-moderated nuclear reactor constructed during the Cold War and operated by the U.S. government at the Hanford Site in Washington; it began production in 1963.
The X-10 Graphite Reactor is a decommissioned nuclear reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Formerly known as the Clinton Pile and X-10 Pile, it was the world's second artificial nuclear reactor and the first intended for continuous operation. It was built during World War II as part of the Manhattan Project.
Since the mid-20th century, plutonium in the environment has been primarily produced by human activity. The first plants to produce plutonium for use in Cold War atomic bombs were the Hanford nuclear site in Washington, and the Mayak nuclear plant, in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia. Over a period of four decades, "both released more than 200 million curies of radioactive isotopes into the surrounding environment – twice the amount expelled in the Chernobyl disaster in each instance."
Atomic tourism or nuclear tourism is a form of tourism in which visitors witness nuclear tests or learn about the Atomic Age by traveling to significant sites in atomic history such as nuclear test reactors, museums with nuclear weapon artifacts, delivery vehicles, sites where atomic weapons were detonated, and nuclear power plants.
Plutonium is a chemical element; it has symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is a silvery-gray actinide metal that tarnishes when exposed to air, and forms a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibits six allotropes and four oxidation states. It reacts with carbon, halogens, nitrogen, silicon, and hydrogen. When exposed to moist air, it forms oxides and hydrides that can expand the sample up to 70% in volume, which in turn flake off as a powder that is pyrophoric. It is radioactive and can accumulate in bones, which makes the handling of plutonium dangerous.
The bismuth-phosphate process was used to extract plutonium from irradiated uranium taken from nuclear reactors. It was developed during World War II by Stanley G. Thompson, a chemist working for the Manhattan Project at the University of California, Berkeley. This process was used to produce plutonium at the Hanford Site. Plutonium was used in the atomic bomb that was used in the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in August 1945. The process was superseded in the 1950s by the REDOX and PUREX processes.
The Cimarron Fuel Fabrication Site was a nuclear fuel production facility located along the southern bank of the Cimarron River near Crescent, Oklahoma. The site was operated by the Kerr-McGee Corporation (KMC) from 1965 to 1975.
In nuclear weapon design, the pit is the core of an implosion nuclear weapon, consisting of fissile material and any neutron reflector or tamper bonded to it. Some weapons tested during the 1950s used pits made with uranium-235 alone, or as a composite with plutonium. All-plutonium pits are the smallest in diameter and have been the standard since the early 1960s. The pit is named after the hard core found in stonefruit such as peaches and apricots.
The RaLa Experiment, or RaLa, was a series of tests during and after the Manhattan Project designed to study the behavior of converging shock waves to achieve the spherical implosion necessary for compression of the plutonium pit of the nuclear weapon. The experiment used significant amounts of a short-lived radioisotope lanthanum-140, a potent source of gamma radiation; the RaLa is a contraction of Radioactive Lanthanum. The method was proposed by Robert Serber and developed by a team led by the Italian experimental physicist Bruno Rossi.
The Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Facility, usually referred to as the CMRR, is a facility under construction at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico which is part of the United States' nuclear stockpile stewardship program. The facility will replace the aging Chemistry and Metallurgy Research (CMR) facility. It is located in Technical Area 55 (TA-55) and consists of two buildings: the Nuclear Facility (CMRR-NF) and the Radiological Laboratory, Utility, and Office Building (RLUOB). The two buildings will be linked by tunnels and will connect to LANL's existing 30-year-old plutonium facility PF-4. The facility is controversial both because of spiraling costs and because critics argue it will allow for expanded production of plutonium 'pits' and therefore could be used to manufacture new nuclear weapons.
Robert Louis (Bob) Ferguson was a nuclear-trained physicist and a 60-year veteran in the field of nuclear energy. He was best known for being appointed the first Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Programs for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) by the first Energy Secretary, James Schlesinger, serving from 1978 to 1980 during President Jimmy Carter's administration.
The Hanford Engineer Works (HEW) was a nuclear production complex in Benton County, Washington, established by the United States federal government in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project during World War II. It built and operated the B Reactor, the first full-scale plutonium production reactor. Plutonium manufactured at the HEW was used in the atomic bomb detonated in the Trinity test in July 1945, and in the Fat Man bomb used in the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in August 1945. The plant continued producing plutonium for nuclear weapons until 1971. The HEW was commanded by Colonel Franklin T. Matthias until January 1946, and then by Colonel Frederick J. Clarke.
Facer, J. F. Jr.; Harmon, K. M. (30 March 1954). Precipitation of Plutonium(IV) Oxalate (Report). Richland, Washington: Hanford Site. HW-31186. Retrieved 21 January 2025.
Gerber, Michele S. (18 February 1997). History and Stabilization of the Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP) Complex, Hanford Site (Report). doi:10.2172/325360. OSTI325360. HNF-EP-0924.
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