Literature review of metal corrosion sensitivity in high temperature, high impurity hot cell atmospheres

摘要

The pyrochemical conditions of spent nuclear fuel for the purpose of final disposal is being demonstrated at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL). One aspect of this program is to develop a lithium preprocessing stage for the Fuel Conditioning Facility (FCF). One of the design considerations under investigation in this program is the system's corrosion response in the presence of irradiated commercial fuel as well as atmospheric impurities. Static corrosion coupon tests have been completed which demonstrate the potential corrosivity of the salt matrix in a worse case environment as well as provide a boundary for allowable impurities in the system during operation. The literature concerning corrosion of either fused salts or molten metals consistently emphasizes three similar features which are common to both systems: (1) the overall corrosion rate is strongly dependent on temperature, impurity concentration and flow velocity; (2) many different mechanisms can be involved in a specific corrosion process; and (3) corrosion rates will significantly increase as all three of these independent variables are increased. The qualitative and quantitative understanding of these corrosion results is important for this spent fuel program since all of these variables will increase as the process scale increases. The purpose of this work was to determine if any data existed which could provide a quantitative expectation for corrosion rates of refractory metals in a lithium chloride salt bath.