• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.900-906
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• 2024

The Passively-Cooled Molten Salt Fast Reactor (PMFR) is one of the advanced design concepts of the Molten Salt Fast Reactor (MSFR) which utilizes a natural circulation for the primary loop and aims to attain a long-life operation without any means of fuel reprocessing. For an extended operation period, it is necessary to have enough fissile material, i.e., high excess reactivity, at the onset of operation. Since the PMFR is based on a fast neutron spectrum, direct implementation of a burnable absorber concept for the control of excess reactivity would be ineffective. Therefore, a localized moderator concept that encircles the active core has been envisioned for the PMFR which enables the effective utilization of a burnable absorber to achieve low reactivity swing and long-life operation. The modified PMFR design that incorporates a moderator and burnable absorber is presented, where depletion calculation is performed to estimate the reactor lifetime and reactivity swing to assess the feasibility of the proposed design. All the presented neutronic analysis has been conducted based on the Monte Carlo Serpent2 code with ENDF/B-VII.1 library.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.45 no.8
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• pp.464-471
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• 2008

The electrolyte separator for thermal battery should be easily handled and loaded a large amount of the molten salt. Ceramic fibers, especially fibrous commercial glass filters were used as an electrolyte separator and the lithium based molten salts were infiltrated into the ceramic filters. The pore structures of the ceramic filter and the melting properties of the lithium salts affected to the electrolyte loading and leakage. During the infiltration, ions of $Li^+$ and $F^-$ in the molten salts were reacted with the glass fiber and caused to be weaken the fiber strength.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.45 no.7
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• pp.423-429
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• 2008

Ceramic Fiber separator is the promising material for thermal battery system because it reduces the production cost and offers the potential to a new application compared to a pellet type electrolyte. The molten salt electrolytes for thermal battery were prepared by the impregnation of the commercial glass filters such as GF-A, C and F (Whatman, USA) with two types of molten-lithium salts, LiCl-KCl and LiK-LiBr-LiF. The wetting properties were evaluated by wetting balance test and wetting angle measurement. The wetting behaviors were strongly affected by the composition of the molten salts and the pore structure of the glass separators. The optimum wetting conditions for maximum loading and effective retention of the molten electrolyte were also studied.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.319.2-319
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• 2002

Synchrotron-based X-ray absorption spectroscopy has been applied to determine the changes in bulk oxidation state of uranium oxides in molten salt. From an analysis of XANES data, one can determine the cahnges in bulk oxidation-state of U compounds in salts(LiCl/KCl). XAFS spectroscpy is a powerful tool for probing the changes in valence state and structure of uranium compounds in colten salt as well as in noncrystalline form and doped in other matrices.

• Analytical Science and Technology
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.759-765
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• 2000

A study on the separation of Zr metal from $LiF-BeF_2-ZrF_4$ (67-27-6 mol%) molten salt was carried out using electrowinning. The decomposition potentials of the $LiF-BeF_2$ (72-28 mol%) and the $LiF-BeF_2-ZrF_4$ (67-27-6 mol%) molten salts were measured to be -1.55 and -1.35 volt, respectively. The Zr separation voltage from the salt were found to be in a range of -1.4 -1.5 volt. As increasing applied current, the deposition of molten salt on a cathode increases but the current efficiency decreases. In addition, the deposition and current efficiency decreases with increasing temperature.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.75-84
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• 2023

The accumulation of spent carbide (YG8), not only pollutes the environment but also causes waste of tungsten, cobalt and other rare metal resources. To better address this issue, we proposed a combined electrochemical separation process of low-temperature aqueous solution and high-temperature molten salt for tungsten and cobalt. H₂WO₄ was obtained from spent carbide in an aqueous solution, and we calcined it to obtain WO₃, which was used as a raw material to obtain tungsten by using molten salt electrodeposition. The influence of the current efficiency and the electrochemical behavior of the discharge precipitation of W(VI) were also studied. The calcination results showed that the morphology of WO₃ was regular and there were no other impurities. The maximum current efficiency of 82.91% was achieved in a series of electrodeposition experiments. According to XRD and SEM analysis, the recovered product was high purity tungsten, which belongs to the simple cubic crystal system. In the W(VI) reduction mechanism experiments, the electrochemical process of W(VI) in NaCl-Na₂WO₄-WO₃ molten salt was investigated using linear scanning voltammetry (LSV) and chronoamperometry in a three-electrode system. The LSV showed that W(VI) was reduced at the cathode in two steps and the electrode reaction was controlled by diffusion. The fitting results of chronoamperometry showed that the nucleation mechanism of W(VI) was an instantaneous nucleation mode, and the diffusion coefficient was 7.379×10^-10 cm²·s^-1.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.6
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• pp.2315-2324
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• 2023

Space nuclear reactors are becoming popular in deep space exploration owing to their advantages of high-power density and stability. Following the fourth-generation nuclear reactor technology, a conceptual design of the dual drum-controlled space molten salt reactor (D²-SMSR) is proposed. The reactor concept uses molten salt as fuel and heat pipes for cooling. A new reactivity control strategy that combines control drums and safety drums was adopted. Critical physical characteristics such as neutron energy spectrum, neutron flux distribution, power distribution and burnup depth were calculated. Flow and heat transfer characteristics such as natural convection, velocity and temperature distribution of the D²-SMSR under low gravity conditions were analyzed. The reactivity control effect of the dual-drums strategy was evaluated. Results showed that the D²-SMSR with a fast spectrum could operate for 10 years at the full power of 40 kWth. The D²-SMSR has a high heat transfer coefficient between molten salt and heat pipe, which means that the core has a good heat-exchange performance. The new reactivity control strategy can achieve shutdown with one safety drum or three control drums, ensuring high-security standards. The present study can provide a theoretical reference for the design of space nuclear reactors.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.53 no.5
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• pp.603-608
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• 2015

Alumina powder have been expanded its application in industry and required to control its morphology such as powder size and aspect ratio of single particle. It can be synthesized by molten - salt method which is possible to obtain various shapes of ceramic particles by controlling the growth direction because each crystal face has different growth rate. In this study, various combinations of salts such as NaCl, $Na_2SO_4$, $Na_3PO_4$ and their mixture were used for control the growth of plate like alumina particle from the initial stage of synthesis because salt having different ionic strength can control the growth direction of ceramic particle under its melting condition around $800{\sim}900^{\circ}C$, and growth behavior of plate-like alumina particle with different reaction conditions such as temperature and concentration on the crystal size and shape was studied.

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.46 no.10
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• pp.646-651
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• 2008

The electrolytic reduction of spent oxide fuel involves the liberation of oxygen in a molten LiCl electrolyte, which results in a chemically aggressive environment that is too corrosive for typical structural materials. It is essential to choose the optimum material for the process equipment handling molten salt. IN713LC is one of the candidate materials proposed for application in electrolytic reduction process. In this study, yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) top coat was applied to a surface of IN713LC with an aluminized metallic bond coat by an optimized plasma spray process, and were investigated the corrosion behavior at $675^{\circ}C$ for 216 hours in the molten salt $LiCl-Li_2O$ under an oxidizing atmosphere. The as-coated and tested specimens were examined by OM, SEM/EDS and XRD, respectively. The bare superalloy reveals obvious weight loss, and the corrosion layer formed on the surface of the bare superalloy was spalled due to the rapid scale growth and thermal stress. The top coatings showed a much better hot-corrosion resistance in the presence of $LiCl-Li_2O$ molten salt when compared to those of the uncoated superalloy and the aluminized bond coatings. These coatings have been found to be beneficial for increasing to the hot-corrosion resistance of the structural materials for handling high temperature lithium molten salts.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.44 no.7
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• pp.767-772
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• 2012

In support of optimizing electrorefining technology for treating spent nuclear fuel, lithium drawdown has been investigated for separating actinides from molten salt electrolyte. Drawdown reaction selectivity is a major issue that requires investigation, since the goal is to remove actinides while leaving the fission products and other components in the salt. A series of lithium drawdown tests with surrogate fission product chlorides was run to obtain selectivity data with non-radioactive salts, develop a predictive model, and draw conclusions about the viability of using this process with actinide-loaded salt. Results of tests with CsCl, $LaCl_3$, $CeCl_3$, and $NdCl_3$ are reported here. Equilibrium was typically achieved in less than 10 hours of contact between lithium metal and molten salt under well-stirred conditions. Maintaining low oxygen and water impurity concentrations (<10 ppm) in the atmosphere was observed to be critical to minimize side reactions and maintain stable salt compositions. An equilibrium model has been formulated and fit to the experimental data. Good fits to the data were achieved. Based on analysis and results obtained to date, it is concluded that clean separation between minor actinides and lanthanides will be difficult to achieve using lithium drawdown.