The Low-Active Waste (LAW) pilot melter, commissioned for operations in January 1999, has completed a major milestone with the completion of feed testing in April 2003. Over the summer, the LAW Pilot Plant at Duratek's Columbia, Maryland, headquarters will be modified to allow glass-pouring demonstrations of full-scale canisters.

Duratek, with its long-term research partner, the Vitreous State Laboratory (VSL) of The Catholic University of America, have completed two major projects at U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) sites over the past decade: (1) the Savannah River Site's (SRS) M-Area Sludge Stabilization Project and (2) the Hanford Site's River Protection Project's Waste Treatment Plant (RPP-WTP) Low-Active Waste (LAW) Pilot Melter. The M-Area Sludge Stabilization Project fielded and operated the country's largest Joule-heated melter for vitrification (waste to glass) at the SRS in South Carolina. During one year of operation, this facility converted nearly 660,000 gallons of mixed waste into about 2.2 million pounds of durable glass, which was ultimately delisted by the SRS. Delisted means that the waste glass, in its stabilized form, poses no threat to people or the environment. This project overcame several hurdles to become the first commercial project to complete the stabilization of mixed wastes through vitrification, and in the process, provided large-scale operational experience to underpin the vitrification technology for future use at the RPP-WTP.

Following the onset of the M-Area project, the RPP-WTP commissioned Duratek to design, build, and operate a pilot test melter system in Columbia, Maryland, to validate and optimize the M-Area technology experience on a dedicated test platform to support the vitrification of a portion of nearly 56 million gallons of LAW waste stored in underground tanks on the Hanford Site in Richland, Washington. Since start-up, the LAW Pilot Plant produced more glass (7.3 million pounds) than any waste glass melter of its type, and has provided the quality of operating data necessary to support the successful start-up of a pioneering facility like the RPP-WTP. These projects promoted the evolution and application of Duratek's proprietary Joule-heated ceramic melter technology. The RPP-WTP will be centered around multiple Dura- Melter systems. When operations begin (currently anticipated to be 2009), the RPP-WTP will be the largest such waste vitrification plant in the world, producing glass at a rate of three to five times faster than previously demonstrated at facilities designed by the DOE in the early 1980s: the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York and the Defense Waste Processing Facility at the SRS.

The Duratek-VSL research and testing program, in support of Bechtel National, Inc., prime contractor for the RPP-WTP, is anticipated to continue through 2006-2007. It has utilized a number of test platforms and as many as 130 scientists, engineers, technicians, and operators since 1996. Duratek began developing its DuraMelter technology in late 1990. In operations and testing alone, Duratek has produced over 9.7 million pounds of glass.