One of the main challenges for the nuclear power industry today is the disposal of spent nuclear fuel. One of the most developed methods for its long term storage is the Swedish KBS-3 concept where the spent fuel is sealed inside copper canisters and placed 500 meters down in the bedrock. Gamma radiation will penetrate the canisters and be absorbed by groundwater thereby creating oxidative radiolysis products such as hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and hydroxyl radicals (HO˙). Both H2O2 and HO˙ are able to initiate corrosion of the copper canisters. In this work the kinetics and mechanism of reactions between the stable radiolysis product, H2O2, and copper and copper oxides were studied. Also the dissolution of copper into solution after reaction with H2O2 was monitored by ICP-OES. The experiments show that both H2O2 and HO˙ are present in the systems with copper and copper oxides. Nevertheless, these species do not appear to influence the dissolution of copper to the same extent as observed in recent studies in irradiated systems. This strongly suggests that aqueous radiolysis can only account for a very minor part of the observed radiation induced corrosion of copper.

Oxidation of dense hot-pressed ZrC specimens from 1073 to 1473 K was investigated using an in situ technique: HT-ESEM. Cuboid specimens were monitored on the surface and on edges and corners during oxidation in order to understand the influence of crack formation and propagation on the Maltese cross shape development of the oxide. The oxidation mechanism comprised three steps: (1) delamination of sample edges, (2) crack formation at corners and (3) crack propagation towards the inner core and formation of microcracks parallel to the interface that increase the accessible surface area followed by a drastic volume expansion. The microcrack pattern is found to be repetitive as if a cyclic debonding of the interface occurred. Characterization of the interface by TEM and HRTEM revealed 123Oxid Met (2017) 88:509-519 DOI 10.1007 the interface between ZrC and ZrO 2 to comprise a 2 lm thick amorphous carbon matrix with ZrO 2 nanocrystals embedded in it.

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The negative-ion based neutral beam injector for heating and current drive of the ITER plasma (ITER HNB) is under development, at present focusing on the optimization of the full-scale plasma source in the SPIDER test stand. The production of H- or D- ions in the ion source is based on the low work function surfaces obtained by caesium evaporation. This paper describes the caesium conditioning procedure and the corresponding beam performances during the first operation of SPIDER with caesium. Technical solutions to overcome present limitations of the test stand are described. The influence of source parameters on the caesium effectiveness was investigated in short beam pulse operation; with total RF power of 400 kW and filling pressure below 0.4 Pa, and a limited number of extraction apertures, a negative ion current density of about 200 A/m2 was extracted in hydrogen, with beam energy lower than 60 keV. Beam optics and beam uniformity were assessed thanks to the acceleration of isolated ion beamlets. A possible procedure to accelerate a uniform beam was demonstrated at low RF power. The results obtained in this first investigation provided key indications on the operation of one of the largest existing sources of accelerated negative hydrogen-like ions.