• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.43-63
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• 2022

The aim of this review is to communicate some essential knowledge of the underlying mechanism of the corrosion of structural containment alloys during molten salt reactor operation in the context of prospective online monitoring in future MSR installations. The formation of metal halide species and the progression of their concentration in the molten salt do reflect containment corrosion, tracing the depletion of alloying metals at the alloy salt interface will assure safe conditions during reactor operation. Even though the progress of alloying metal halides concentrations in the molten salt do strongly understate actual corrosion rates, their prospective 1^st order kinetics followed by near-linearly increase is attributed to homogeneous matrix corrosion. The service life of the structural containment alloy is derived from homogeneous matrix corrosion and near-surface void formation but less so from intergranular cracking (IGC) and pitting corrosion. Online monitoring of corrosion species is of particular interest for molten chloride systems since besides the expected formation of chromium chloride species CrCl₂ and CrCl₃, other metal chloride species such as FeCl₂, FeCl₃, MoCl₂, MnCl₂ and NiCl₂ will form, depending on the selected structural alloy. The metal chloride concentrations should follow, after an incubation period of about 10,000 hours, a linear projection with a positive slope and a steady increase of < 1 ppm per day. During the incubation period, metal concentration show 1^st order kinetics and increasing linearly with time^1/2. Ideally, a linear increase reflects homogeneous matrix corrosion, while a sharp increase in the metal chloride concentration could set a warning flag for potential material failure within the projected service life, e.g. as result of intergranular cracking or pitting corrosion. Continuous monitoring of metal chloride concentrations can therefore provide direct information about the mechanism of the ongoing corrosion scenario and offer valuable information for a timely warning of prospective material failure.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.4
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• pp.1024-1031
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• 2019

The Molten Salt Fast Reactor (MSFR) with its liquid circulating fuel and its fast neutron spectrum calls for a new safety approach including technological neutral methodologies and analysis tools adapted to early design phases. In the frame of the Horizon2020 program SAMOFAR (Safety Assessment of the Molten Salt Fast Reactor) a safety approach suitable for Molten Salt Reactors is being developed and applied to the MSFR. After a description of the MSFR reference design, this paper focuses on the identification of the Postulated Initiating Events (PIEs), which is a core part of the global assessment methodology. To fulfil this task, the Functional Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FFMEA) and the Master Logic Diagram (MLD) are selected and employed separately in order to be as exhaustive as possible in the identification of the initiating events of the system. Finally, an extract of the list of PIEs, selected as the most representative events resulting from the implementation of both methods, is presented to illustrate the methodology and some of the outcomes of the methods are compared in order to highlight symbioses and differences between the MLD and the FFMEA.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.1002-1012
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• 2024

To remove insoluble fission products, which could possibly cause reactor instability and significantly reduce heat transfer efficiency from primary system of molten salt reactor, a helium bubbling method is employed into a passive molten salt fast reactor. In this regard, two-phase flow behavior of molten salt and helium bubbles was investigated experimentally because the helium bubbles highly affect the circulation performance of working fluid owing to an additional drag force. As the helium flow rate is controlled, the change of key thermal-hydraulic parameters was analyzed through a two-phase experiment. Simultaneously, to assess the applicability of numerical model for the analysis of two-phase flow behavior, the numerical calculation was performed using the OpenFOAM 9.0 code. The accuracy of the numerical analysis code was evaluated by comparing it with the experimental data. Generally, numerical results showed a good agreement with the experiment. However, at the high helium injection rates, the prediction capability for void fraction of helium bubbles was relatively low. This study suggests that the multiphaseEulerFoam solver in OpenFOAM code is effective for predicting the helium bubbling but there exists a room for further improvement by incorporating the appropriate drag flux model and the population balance equation.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.922-932
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• 2024

This paper presents the design features and preliminary design analysis results of the Wielenga Innovation Static Salt Reactor (WISSR). The WISSR incorporates features that make it both flexible and inherently safe. It is based on innovative technology that controls a nuclear reactor by moving molten salt fuel into or out of the core. The reactor is a low-pressure, fast spectrum transuranic (TRU) burner reactor. Inherent shutdown is achieved by a large negative reactivity feedback of the liquid fuel and by the expansion of fuel out of the core. The core is made of concentric, thin annular fuel chambers containing molten fuel salt. A molten salt coolant passes between the concentric fuel chambers to cool the core. The core has both fixed and variable volume fuel chambers. Pressure, applied by helium gas to fuel reservoirs below the core, pushes fuel out of a reservoir and up into a set of variable volume chambers. A control system monitors the density and temperature of the fuel throughout the core. Using NaCl-(TRU,U)Cl₃ fuel and NaCl-KCl-MgCl₂ coolant, a road-transportable compact WISSR core design was developed at a power level of 1250 MWt. Preliminary neutronics and thermal-hydraulics analyses demonstrate the technical feasibility of WISSR.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.31 no.10
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• pp.1181-1187
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• 1994

Sr-ferrite powders were synthesized by molten salt method. The process of powder formation was investigated by controlling the size and shape (sphere and acicular) of starting materials. The morphology of resulting ferrite was plate-like regardless of the shape of starting materials, Fe2O3 powders. As a result, the formation of Sr-ferrite in the molten salt was proceeded by solution-precipitation.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.331-337
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• 2017

Thermal batteries, reserve power source, is activated by melting of molten salt at the temperature range of $350{\sim}550^{\circ}C$. To immobile the molten state electrolyte when the thermal battery is activated, the binder must be added in electrolyte. Usually, molten salts include 30~40 wt% of MgO binder to ensure electrical insulation as well as safety. However, the conventional MgO binder tends to increase ionic conductive resistance and thus the inclusion of the binder increases the total impedance of the battery. This paper mainly focused on the study of yttria stabilized zirconia (YSZ) as an alternative binder for molten salt. The chemical stability between the molten salt and YSZ is measured by XRD and DSC. And the sufficient path for ionic conduction on molten salt could be confirmed by the enhanced wetting behavior and the enlarged pore size of YSZ. The electrochemical properties were analyzed using single cell tests so that it showed the outstanding performance than that using MgO binder.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.381-385
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• 2009

A basic objective is the preparation and surface studies of supported molten salt catalysts because molten salts can stay as the liquid phase in the range of the ordinary reaction temperature. Many kinds of metal salt mixtures for the formation of molten salt phase are appliable but CuCl and KCl were selected in this study because Cu is considered catalytically reactive in many reactons. The loading of the molten salt was selected as 25 vol% of the total pore volume of ${\gamma}-alumina$ to provide reasonable exposed surface area. The surface structure of catalysts containing molten salts in the ${\gamma}-alumina$ was studied using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). CuCl and KCl were added into the ${\gamma}-alumina$ using concentrated hydrochloric acid solution by the impregnation technique. The surfaces of the prepared catalysts before and after heat treatments were compared and they suggested that the heat treatment of catalysts helped the formation of molten-salt although the surface compositions of CuCl and KCl were not uniform.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2000.10a
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• pp.451-451
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• 2000

This study aims for the optimization of process conditions in a fixed-bed catalytic reactor system with a circulating molten salt bath, in which partial oxidation of propylene to acrolein takes place. Two-dimensional pseudo-homogeneous model is adopted with estimation of suitable parameters and its validity is corroborated by comparing simulation result with experimental data. The temperature of the molten salt and the feed composition are found to exercise significant influence on the yield of acrolein and the magnitude of hot spot. The temperature of the molten salt is usually kept constant. This study, however, suggests that the temperature of the molten salt must be axially adjusted so that the abrupt peak of hot spot should not appear near the reactor entrance. The yield of acrolein is maximized and the position and the magnitude of hot spot are optimized by the method of the iterative dynamic programming (IDP).

• Proceedings of the Korean Radioactive Waste Society Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.426-430
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• 2003

Fissionable uranium will be separated from long-lived nuclear materials in pyroprocess for transmutation. This study was measured decomposition voltage and deposition rate on cathode of uranium in $LiF-BeF_2$ molten salt by electrowinning. The result of experimental is that decomposition voltage of $UF_4$ and $LiF-BeF_2$ molten salt is -1.4 and -1.5 volt at $500^{\circ}C$ Deposition rate of uranium on cathode increases with increase of uranium concentration in molten salt.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.73-78
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• 2010

The suppression of molten salt vaporization is one of the key technical issues in the electrolytic reduction process developed for recycling spent nuclear fuel from light-water reactors Since the Hertz-Langmuir relation previously applied to molten salt vaporization is valid only for vaporization into a vacuum, a diffusion model was derived to quantitatively assess the vaporization of LiCl, $Li_2O$ and Li from an electrolytic reducer operating under atmospheric pressure. Vaporization rates as a function of operation variables were calculated and shown to be in reasonable agreement with the experimental data obtained from thermogravimetry.