Short Lived Species Produced in Pulse Irradiated Melts of LiF-KF and LiF-NaF-KF Eutectic Mixtures.

Radiation-induced reaction kinetics of Zn2+ with eS− and Cl2˙− in Molten LiCl–KCl eutectic at 400–600 °C

“…6 Subsequently, and to the contrary, several studies reported radiation-induced formation of oxidizing and reducing transients in a variety of alkali metal halide molten salt systems. [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] These studies have shown that the absorption of ionizing radiation by molten halide salt systems (represented as M + X À ) initiates production of an energetic excess electron (e À ) and corresponding 'hole' (electron vacancy) that localizes on the halide component (X À ) to produce a halide radical (X ). As in water, the initial energetic e À passes through states of partial or pre-solvation prior to complete solvation (e S À , absorbing in the visible and near-IR), while X rapidly forms an anion-radical dimer with other halide anions (X 2 À , predominantly absorbing in the UV): 11,15,16 M + X À M + + X + e À , (…”

“…More recently, Sawamura and coworkers performed nanosecond electron pulse radiolysis experiments on molten lithium chloride-potassium chloride (LiCl-KCl), lithium bromidepotassium bromide (LiBr-KBr), lithium fluoride-potassium fluoride (LiF-KF), and lithium fluoride-sodium fluoridepotassium fluoride (LiF-NaF-KF) systems. [12][13][14] In each salt system, they observed the absorption band of e S À , with peak absorbances between 500 and 800 nm depending on salt mixture composition and temperature, which decayed via first-order kinetics with lifetimes on the order of hundreds of nanoseconds. In each case, the addition of 50 mM Cd 2+ caused the e S À absorption band to disappear, and the appearance of an additional absorption with a peak around 330 nm that indicated the formation of Cd + .…”