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Background and motivation

The Department of Energy plans to locate a high level nuclear waste repository in Nevada. One option that is being considered is transmuting the radioactive waste by bombarding it with neutrons. This would be a very large-scale project since 77,000 tons of waste are planned for the repository. Is transmutation on such a large scale practical? One important question is the materials question: can materials be found that can withstand the high heat fluxes and high neutron fluxes of transmutation? One important material is a mixture of lead and bismuth, lead-bismuth eutectic (LBE), which has been proposed as both a spallation target(1) and as a coolant(2). LBE has many advantages for this purpose: it has high thermal conductivity, melts at a relatively low temperature (123 C), has a high efficiency as a spallation target, and has a low neutron capture cross section. The Russian navy used LBE in their nuclear submarines, so there is practical experience in the use of LBE as a coolant. Unfortunately, LBE also is chemically corrosive: it corrodes the stainless steel that makes up the piping and transmutation chamber.

The goal is to guide the selection of appropriate materials, or the treatment of existing materials, to minimize the corrosion.

One important result is the significance of surface preparation. Two steel samples of identical composition had different surface preparation: one sample was cold rolled and the other annealed. The two samples were then exposed to LBE. One might expect that the cold-rolled sample to be more susceptible to corrosion, because it has more grain boundaries, and grain boundaries are often initiation sites for corrosion. Instead, the cold-rolled sample was an order of magnitude less susceptible to corrosion.

See the Glossary for the Non-Scientist

Recent relevant publications and presentations

Spectroscopic and microscopic study of the corrosion of iron-silicon steel by lead-bismuth eutectic (LBE) at elevated temperatures, Allen L. Johnson. Eric P. Loewen, Thao T. Ho, Dan Koury, Brian Hosterman, Jenny Welch, and John W. Farley, J. Nucl. Mat. 350, 221-231 (2006).

. Application of X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy to the study of the lead-bismuth eutectic (LBE)-induced corrosion of stainless steel, D. L. Perry(1), J. W. Farley(2), A. L. Johnson(3), D. Koury(2), B. Hosterman(2), U. Younas(2), and Thao Ho(3). (1) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, (2) Department of Physics, UNLV (3) Department of Chemistry, UNLV
[Poster presentation at American Chemical Society meeting in San Diego, presented by Dale Perry, March 13-17, 2005]
Click here for abstract

Spectroscopic and Microscopic Investigation of the Corrosion of 316/316L Stainless Steel by Lead-Bismuth Eutectic (LBE) at Elevated Temperatures: Importance of Surface Preparation, by Allen L. Johnson, Denise Parsons, Julia Manzerova, Dale L. Perry, Dan Koury, Brian Hosterman, and John W. Farley, J. Nucl. Mater. 328, 88-94 (2004).

Footnotes:

(1) Spallation refers to the bombardment of LBE by high-energy protons, producing large numbers of neutrons, which transmute the waste.

(2) A coolant is needed because as many as 100 MW of power need to be dissipated to avoid melting the target.

For more information, see the AAA web site at UNLV devoted to the transmutation project.

Supported by the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative of DOE.