Perma-Fix Announces Exclusive Agreement With Kurion, Inc. to Advance New Treatment Technologies for Complex Nuclear Waste
ATLANTA, GA--(Marketwire - March 05, 2013) - Perma-Fix Environmental Services, Inc. (NASDAQ: PESI) today announced it has partnered with Kurion, Inc., to pursue deployment of Kurion's GeoMelt® In-Container Vitrification (ICV™) at Perma-Fix's fixed facilities. Kurion is a clean energy company that creates technological solutions that minimize and stabilize nuclear and hazardous waste for safe, secure and permanent disposal.
Kurion's GeoMelt® ICV™ turns certain components of nuclear waste into glass through a process known as vitrification (a volume reduction and stabilization process that immobilizes waste in a leach-resistant glass matrix so that the resulting waste form provides the ultimate assurance of long-term environmental isolation). The ICV™ is a cost-effective, modular, robust and easily deployable in-container and low-cost application of vitrification. The ICV™ is ideal for tank, mixed, debris-laden or pre-containerized waste streams where temperature, glass former and process flexibility is important to address waste streams with varying and/or challenging chemistries and densities. GeoMelt® has been used around the world and has many different applications.
Targeted waste streams for processing and demonstration of capabilities include Class B or C nuclear power plant primary or radwaste resins, filters, sludges; sealed sources; and those required by customers to be vitrified, such as certain Hanford Low Activity Wastes (LAW).
Dr. Louis F. Centofanti, Chairman and CEO of Perma-Fix, commented, "We believe that this collaboration will allow us to treat a variety of highly complex nuclear waste streams that we believe currently have no other commercially available treatment and disposal options. We are excited to work exclusively with Kurion in advancing this discriminating technology in the U.S. and other strategic markets."
Ralph DiSilbo, Chairman and CEO of Kurion, stated, "Perma-Fix, a pioneer and technology leader in treating a variety of nuclear waste streams, is the ideal partner to help further our own advanced technologies. Together, we look forward to addressing some of the most challenging nuclear waste streams around the world. Perma-Fix's permitted facilities, including its Perma-Fix Northwest facility in Hanford, Washington, are ideally suited for processing a variety of domestic nuclear waste streams."