• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.43 no.5
• /
• pp.429-436
• /
• 2011

The corrosion of materials exposed to high temperature helium in a very high temperature reactor is caused by interaction with the impurities in the helium. This interaction then induces high temperature mechanical deterioration. By considering the effect of the impurity concentration on material corrosion, a long-term coolant chemistry guideline can be determined for the range of impurity concentration at which the material is stable for a long time. In this work, surface reactions were investigated by analyzing the thermodynamics and the experimental results for Alloy 617 exposed to controlled impure helium at $950^{\circ}C$. Moreover, the surfaces were examined for the Alloy 617 crept in air and in uncontrolled helium, which was explained by possible surface reactions.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.55 no.7
• /
• pp.2547-2555
• /
• 2023

Amberlite IRN-78 resin was incorporated with iron to make a hybrid resin for the removal of silica from the borated water of nuclear power plants. The hybrid resin contained 0.84 wt % iron compounds upon pyrolysis. In batch experiments carried out at room temperature, 1 g of the hybrid resin removed ~60 ㎍ silica from 1 ppm borated water in ~120 min. The efficiency of the hybrid material increased with the resin quantity, decreased with silica concentration, and remained unchanged at different pH values. Freundlich and Temkin isothermal adsorption dominated the silica removal process and followed the pseudo-first-order and intra-particle diffusion mechanism simultaneously. The concentration of the leached iron remained appreciably under the safe limits of 200 ㎍/l during the experiments. This detailed study suggests the use of hybrid resin for the removal of silica from borated water streams and other similar systems.

• Tribology and Lubricants
• /
• v.28 no.6
• /
• pp.315-320
• /
• 2012

For proper functioning, general machines usually need lubricant oil as a cooling, cleaning, and sealing agent at points of mechanical contact. The quality of lubricant oil can deteriorate during operation owing to various causes such as high temperature, combustion products and extraneous impurities. In this study, a heavy load stopped during operation, and the oil was analyzed to check whether any impurities were added. Extraction using acetonitrile followed by reaction with BSTFA(bistrimethylsilyl trifluoroacetamide) showed that, trimethylsilylated ethylene glycol was present in the lubricant oil. To quantify the ethylene glycol in the oil, deuterium-substituted ethylene glycol, which acted as an internal standard, was added to the sample and then extracted with the solvent. Next, the extract was reacted with the derivatizing agent(BSTFA) and then analyzed with GC/MS. The detection limit of this method was found to be $0.5{\mu}g/g$ and the recovery of oil containing $20,000{\mu}g/g$ of ethylene glycol was measured to be 94.8%. A damaged O-ring and eroded cylinder liner were found during the overhaul, which implied the leakage of coolant containing ethylene glycol into the lubricating system. The erosion of the cylinder liner was assumed to be due to cavitation of the coolant in the cooling system.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.53 no.5
• /
• pp.1676-1685
• /
• 2021

We develop a new high-fidelity multiphysics model to simulate boron chemistry in the porous Chalk River Unidentified Deposit (CRUD) deposits. Heat transfer, capillary flow, solute transport, and chemical reactions are fully coupled. The evaporation of coolant in the deposits is included in governing equations modified by the volume-averaged assumption of wick boiling. The axial offset anomaly (AOA) of the Seabrook nuclear power plant is simulated. The new model reasonably predicts the distributions of temperature, pressure, velocity, volumetric boiling heat density, and chemical concentrations. In the thicker CRUD regions, 60% of the total heat is removed by evaporative heat transfer, causing boron species accumulation. The new model successfully shows the quantitative effect of coolant evaporation on the local distributions of boron. The total amount of boron in the CRUD layer increases by a factor of 1.21 when an evaporation-driven increase of soluble and precipitated boron concentrations is reflected. In addition, the concentrations of B(OH)₃ and LiBO₂ are estimated according to various conditions such as different CRUD thickness and porosity. At the end of the cycle in the AOA case, the total mass of boron incorporated in CRUD deposits of a reference single fuel rod is estimated to be about 0.5 mg.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
• /
• v.24 no.3
• /
• pp.285-290
• /
• 2003

An analytical method for the simultaneous determination of trace Ge, As and Se in biological samples by inductively coupled plasma/mass spectrometry has been investigated. The effects of added organic gas into the coolant argon gas on the analyte signal were studied to improve the detection limit, accuracy and precision. The addition of a small amount of methane (10 mL/min.) into the coolant gas channel improved the ionization of Ge, As and Se. The analytical sensitivity of the proposed Ar/CH₄system was superior by at least two-fold to that of the conventional Ar method. In the present method, the detection limits obtained for Ge, As and Se were 0.014, 0.012 and 0.064 ㎍/L, respectively. The analytical reliability of the proposed method was evaluated by analyzing the certified standard reference materials (SRM). Recoveries of 99.9% for Ge, 103% for As, 96.5% for Se were obtained for NIST SRM of freeze dried urine sample. The proposed method was also applied to the biological samples.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.55 no.9
• /
• pp.3183-3193
• /
• 2023

The water radiolysis in-core at light water reactors (LWRs) produces various radicals with other ionic species/molecules and radioactive nitrogen species in the reactor coolant. Nitrogen species can exist in many different chemical forms and recirculate in water and steam, and consequently contribute to what extent the environmental safety at nuclear power plants. Therefore, a clear understanding of formation kinetics and chemical behaviors of nitrogen species under irradiation is crucial for better insight into the characteristics of major radioactive species released to the main steam or relevant coolant systems and eventually development of advanced processes/methodologies to enhance the environmental safety at nuclear power plants. This paper thus focuses on basic principles on electrochemical interaction kinetics of radiolytic molecules and various nitrogen species in high temperature water, fundamental approaches for calculating thermodynamic values to predict their stability and domain in LWRs, and the effect of nitrogen species on crevice chemistry/corrosion and intergranular stress corrosion cracking (IGSCC) susceptibility of structure materials in high temperature water.

• Analytical Science and Technology
• /
• v.13 no.4
• /
• pp.474-483
• /
• 2000

An inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometer/shielding system was specially designed and built for the analysis of radioactive materials. Both of an inductively coupled plasma source and a sample transfer system to be contacted with radioactive materials was installed in a stainless steel glove box. In terms of analytical capability and radiation safety, characteristic feature of the system was investigated. Its applicability to the determination of fission products and corrosion products in the radioactive materials such as spent fuel dissolver solution and the primary coolant of nuclear power reactors was evaluated. In the concentration range $0.01-0.1mgL^{-1}$, the relative standard deviation was found to be less than 5%.

• Korean Journal of Chemical Engineering
• /
• v.35 no.11
• /
• pp.2157-2163
• /
• 2018

Catalytic reactors have been essential for chemical engineering process, and different designs of reactors in multi-scales have been previously studied. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) utilized in reactor designs have been gaining interest due to its cost-effective advantage in designing the actual reactors before its construction. In this work, butadiene synthesis via oxidative dehydrogenation (ODH) of n-butene using tubular reactor was used as a case study in the CFD model. The effects of coolant and reactor diameter were investigated in assessing the reactor performance. Based on the results of the CFD model, the conversion and selectivity were 86.5% and 59.5% respectively in a fixed bed reactor under adiabatic condition. When coolants were used in a tubular reactor, reactor temperature profiles showed that solar salt had lower temperature gradients inside the reactor than the cooling water. Furthermore, higher conversion (90.9%) and selectivity (90.5%) were observed for solar salt as compared to the cooling water (88.4% for conversion and 86.3% for selectivity). Meanwhile, reducing the reactor diameter resulted in smaller temperature gradients with higher conversion and selectivity.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.55 no.10
• /
• pp.3543-3548
• /
• 2023

Shutdown chemistry evolution is performed in nuclear power plants at each refueling outage (RFO) to establish safe conditions to open system and minimize inventory of corrosion products in the reactor coolant system (RCS). After hydrogen peroxide is added to RCS during shutdown chemistry evolution, corrosion products are released and are removed by filters and ion exchange resins in the chemical volume control system (CVCS). Shutdown chemistry evolution including RCS clean-up time to remove released corrosion products impacts the critical path schedule during RFOs. The estimation of clean-up time prior to RFO can provide more reliable actions for RCS clean-up operations and transients to operators during shutdown chemistry. Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) shutdown calculator (SDC) enables to provide clean-up time by Co-58 peak activity through operational data from nuclear power plants (NPPs). In this study, we have investigated the results of EPRI SDC by shutdown chemistry data of Co-58 activity using NPP data from previous cycles and modeled the estimated clean-up time by EPRI SDC using average Co-58 activity of the NPP. We selected two RFO data from the NPP to evaluate EPRI SDC results using the purification time to reach to 1.3 mCi/cc of Co-58 after hydrogen peroxide addition. Comparing two RFO data, the similar purification time between actual and computed data by EPRI SDC, 0.92 and 1.74 h respectively, was observed with the deviation of 3.7-7.2%. As the modeling the estimated clean-up time, we calculated average Co-58 peak concentration for normal cycles after cycle 10 and applied two-sigma (2σ, 95.4%) for predicted Co-58 peak concentration as upper and lower values compared to the average data. For the verification of modeling, shutdown chemistry data for RFO 17 was used. Predicted RCS clean-up time with lower and upper values was between 21.05 and 27.58 h, and clean-up time for RFO 17 was 24.75 h, within the predicted time band. Therefore, our calculated modeling band was validated. This approach can be identified that the advantage of the modeling for clean-up time with SDC is that the primary prediction of shutdown chemistry plans can be performed more reliably during shutdown chemistry. This research can contribute to improving the efficiency and safety of shutdown chemistry evolution in nuclear power plants.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
• /
• v.21 no.2
• /
• pp.238-241
• /
• 2010

The purification of indole from 54.3wt% indole fraction (temperature range of distillate: $250{\sim}255^{\circ}C$) recovered by extraction-distillation combination of coal tar fraction (temperature range of distillate: $240{\sim}265^{\circ}C$) was examined by solute crystallization. The feed consists of eight components such as quinoline, iso-quinoline, indole, quinaldine, 1-methylnaphthalene, 2-methylnaphthalene, biphenyl and phenyl ether. Hexane and an aqueous solution of methanol (50 : 50 vol%) were used as the crystallization solvent and the coolant, respectively. A batch stirred tank of glass material was used as a crystallization apparatus. By increasing the operation temperature and the volume ratio of solvent to feed at initial, the purity of indole increas ed, but yields of indole showed a decreasing tendency. Solute crystallization method using hexane as a solvent was excellent because the purity of 99.3 wt% indole was recovered at the yield of 50% without washing operation.