An electrochemical technique for controlled dissolution of zirconium based components of light water reactors

Chatterjee, Sayandev; Fujimoto, Meghan S.; Canfield, Nathan L.; Elmore, M.R.; Olson, Devin W.; Buck, Edgar C.; Conroy, Michele; Varga, Tamás; Senor, David J.

doi:10.1039/c8ra08693a

Cited by 1 publication

(9 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…HCl (11.38 M). The LSVs conducted on the getters shown in Figure A showed near identical results to that seen for the liners seen previously, as is expected for materials of near identical compositions. Among the chosen electrolytes, alkyl halides were particularly attractive as they offer a benign media and allow electrodissolution at a voltage low enough that does not result in any interfering electrochemical reactions/processes.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 80%

“…The electrochemical assemblies used for the voltammetry experiments are described in the Experimental Section. Linear sweep voltammetry (LSV) studies were conducted at room temperature (25 °C) on unplated Zr-4 getters of similar mass and 2A showed near identical results to that seen for the liners seen previously, 9 as is expected for materials of near identical compositions. Among the chosen electrolytes, alkyl halides were particularly attractive as they offer a benign media and allow electrodissolution at a voltage low enough that does not result in any interfering electrochemical reactions/ processes.…”

Section: ■ Results and Discussionsupporting

confidence: 71%

“…The dissolution processes on the Zr-4 core in general were accompanied by the formation of a whitish-gray precipitate, similar to that observed for the liners. 9 To identify the phases associated with the precipitate, they were washed repeatedly with water to dissolve any residual supporting electrolyte salt that might have been left with the solid residue and dried. The diffractograms of the residues generated from Zr-4 cores that do not have any H-or D-loading as well as the H-and Dloaded getters (namely, 1:1 mol Zr/H and 1:1 mol Zr/D) show a broad profile as shown in Figure S3, demonstrating mainly amorphous nature of the residue.…”

Section: ■ Results and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As a proof-of-concept, we recently demonstrated controlled potential electrolytic methods for controlled radial dissolution of Zr-4-based liners. 9 The getter components present a higher complexity due to the presence of the nickel plating. Therefore, responding to the need for a technique for controlled and uniform dissolution of getter surfaces to effectively probe the radial chemistry of the core, the overall aim of this work is to establish a correlative technique that can be used to determine radial elemental distribution across getter-based components of LWRs.…”

Section: ■ Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The dissolution rate can further be tailored through modulating the applied electrochemical voltage, current and/or through changes in the electrode material, its area of contact with the active surface, and the electrode configuration. As a proof-of-concept, we recently demonstrated controlled potential electrolytic methods for controlled radial dissolution of Zr-4-based liners …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Probing the Radial Chemistry of Getter Components in Light Water Reactors via Controlled Electrochemical Dissolution

et al. 2020

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Getters are among the key functional components in the tritium-producing burnable absorber rods (TPBARs) of light water reactors (LWRs) and are used to capture the released tritium gas. They are nickel-plated zircaloy-4 tubes that, upon exposure to irradiation or tritium in the light water reactors, undergo alteration in structure, chemical composition, and chemistry. Understanding the radial tritium distribution is key to gaining insight into the evolution of new chemistry upon irradiation to predict getter performance. The holy grail is to develop a method akin to selectively peeling off the layers of an onion in an effort to get a radial map of elements and particularly tritium across the getter. Toward this goal, the overall aim of this work is to establish a correlative technique that can be used to determine radial tritium distribution across getters. To this end, this work specifically focuses on the validation of a correlative method for controlled radial dissolution of nickel-plated getters. Here, pristine getters as well as getters loaded with different mass ratios of hydrogen and deuterium are used as the nonradioactive surrogates of tritium, the idea being that the methodology can be readily extended to tritiated getter components. Here, the surface nickel layers as well as the bulk zirconium layers are sequentially dissolved in a controlled, uniform way using voltage-assisted electrochemical dissolution techniques. The dissolution is complemented by periodic elemental analysis of the electrolyte solution during and post dissolution. This is complemented by microscopic analyses on the exposed surfaces to provide a correlative technique for a complete picture of the radial distribution of various elements across the getter

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 80%

Section: ■ Results and Discussionsupporting

confidence: 71%

Section: ■ Results and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: ■ Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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