Unusual care was taken in the design and construction of the boxes to minimize in-leakage of room air. Another interesting point is that the argon is not recycled. One of the argon boxes contains an unusual type of calciner that could apparently be used to stabilize plutonium oxide at the l,000 C temperature required by the standard. The calciner is actually a molten salt furnace that holds a tall, thin crucible, that can hold 4-5 kg of plutonium oxide. When closed, the furnace is sealed off from the glove box atmosphere.
Air is pulsed in and off-gases are pulsed out.
The oxide is stirred by a mechanical stirring rod and fluffed up by the air pulses. Livermore personnel apparently get very good results with this method. The Staff will follow Livermore's implementation of Recommendation 94-1.