RESUMEN
In nuclear reactors that use molten fluoride salts, either as coolants or as the medium for the fuel, the purity of the salts is critical for controlling salt chemistry and mitigating corrosion. Water is a particularly important contaminant in this regard, as it participates in a number of important corrosion reactions, so the careful measurement of oxygen, which is principally present in the salts due to water contamination, is a critical step in salt characterization. Here, we present an analytical method for quantifying oxygen contamination in Li2BeF4 (FLiBe), a technologically important and suitably representative fluoride salt, with a detection limit of 22 µg of oxygen, or 110 ppm in a 200 mg sample. To test the method, four FLiBe samples from different batches were tested. Two of these showed oxygen concentrations below the method detection limit, while two showed concentrations above it. In particular, the difference in the oxygen concentration between purified and un-purified batches of material from Kairos Power showed the efficacy of this method in characterizing the degree of oxygen removal obtained from purification methods.
RESUMEN
Molten salts such as 2LiF-BeF2 (FLiBe) have been proposed as coolants for advanced nuclear fission and fusion reactors. Critical to the design, licensing and operation of these reactors is characterization and understanding of the chemical behavior and mass transport of activation and fission products, corrosion products, and other solutes in the coolant. Electrochemical techniques are a powerful suite of tools for probing these phenomena. The design of an experimental cell for molten salt electrochemistry is described herein. As a demonstration of this design, details of the experimental methods used to conduct electrochemical experiments with molten FLiBe with addition of LiH are provided. Decommissioning of the cell is considered from the point of view of decontamination and waste generated. Main features of the cell include:â¢Suitable for operation up to 800 °C; suitable for operation inside and outside of a glovebox.â¢Enables sweep gas, gas sampling and analysis; enables addition of solid and liquid materials during operation.â¢Supports a variety of electrode materials and arrangements.
RESUMEN
This article shows the elemental analysis of a batch of FLiBe prepared from LiF and BeF2 and purified by hydro-fluorination, see "Batch-Scale Hydrofluorination of Li2BeF4 to Support Molten Salt Reactor Development" (Kelleher et al., 2015), which was performed by the method of inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), with analysis samples prepared by multi-acid microwave digestion with and without HF acid. Data shows quantification of a total of sixty-five elements and is reported for a total of eight digested samples. Quantification of 6Li/7Li isotopic ratio is reported for a total of eight digested samples.
RESUMEN
FLiBe-exposed IG-110 graphite and a control IG-110 sample were analyzed by Raman, XPS, GDMS, and XRD, and the complete raw data sets are provided in the Supplementary Information. These data sets enable full reproducibility and transparency of the data analysis we reported in the accompanying research paper titled "Fluorination of Nuclear Graphite IG-110 in Molten FLiBe salt at 700⯰C", published in the Journal of Fluorine Chemistry, and facilitates quantitative comparison with future similar studies by other research groups. In this data article, we provide plots of the peak fitting for all Raman spectra from each sampling point on the graphite surface. We also provide the measured impurity concentrations of the IG-110 samples, as measured by GDMS; this data was not reported nor discussed in the accompanying research paper. The method and software used for peak fitting for the spectra from Raman, XPS, and XRD are listed separately.