• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.165-174
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• 2004

In order to simultaneously vitrify the ion exchange resin(IER) and combustible dry active waste(DAW) generated from Korean nuclear power plants, a vitrification pilot test was conducted using an induction cold crucible melter(CCM) . The energy necessary for startup of the glass using a Ti-ring was evaluated as about 290 kWh. The power supplied from a high frequency generator to melt the glass properly was ranged from 160 to 190 kW without any interruption. When the mixture of the IER and DAW was fed into the CCM, the concentration of CO was lowered up to 1/40 compared to feeding the IER solely. It may be caused by the DAW which can produce about 1.8 times higher heat compared to the IER. When the swelling phenomenon occurred in the glass melt, the concentration of $NO_2$, oxidizing gas, was higher than NO, reducing gas. Total feed amounts of the IER and DAW were 368 and 751 kg, respectively. And then, about 74 of volume reduction factor was achieved.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.247-254
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• 2012

Vitrification technology has been widely applied as one of effective processing methods for wastes generated in nuclear power plants. The advantage of vitrifying for low- and intermediate-level radioactive wastes has a large volume reduction and good durability for the final products. Recently, a filter using on HVAC(Heating Ventilating & Air Conditioning System) is composed with media (glass fiber) and separator (aluminum film) has been studied the proper treatment technology for meeting the waste disposal requirement. Present paper is a feasibility study for the filter vitrification that developing of the glass compositions for filter melting and melting test for physicochemical characteristic evaluation. The aluminum metal of film type is preparing with 0.5 cm size for proper mixing with glass frit, glass fiber is also preparing with 1 cm size within crucible. The glass compositions should be developed considering molten glass are related with wastes reduction. Glass compositions obtained from developing on glass formulation are mainly composed of $SiO_2$ and $B_2O_3$ for aluminum metal. A variety of factors obtained from the glass formulation and melting test are reviewed, which is feeding rate and glass characteristics of final products such as durability for implementing the wastes disposal requirement.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.125-131
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• 2009

An electrolytic system (zinc anode-gallium cathode) was setup to evaluate the performance of several stirrers prepared for this study, where stirrers have been used to prevent uranium from forming dendrite on the cathode in pyrochemical process. In the case of no-stirring condition, zinc dendrites began to grow on the gallium surface in 1 hour and some dendrite grew out of the cathode crucible around 6 hours. When a rectangular stirrer or a tilt stirrer was rotated, at 40${\sim}$150 rpm, to mix the liquid gallium cathode, dendritic growth of zinc metal was prevented irrespective of revolution speed, but some of the deposits overflowed out of the cathode crucible owing to the large centrifugal forces at 150 rpm. The harrow stirrer did not nearly retard the dendrite growth at 40 rpm, but the dendrite growth was retarded at higher than 100 rpm and the zinc deposits also did not overflow at 150 rpm. Pounder could also prevent the dendrite growth to some extent but it had some difficulties in operation compared with other types of stirrers.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.199-206
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• 2013

Electrowinning process in pyroprocessing recovers U (uranium) and TRU (Trans Uranium) elements simultaneously from spent fuels using a liquid cadmium cathode (LCC). When the solubility limit of U deposits over 2.35wt% in Cd, U dendrites were formed on the LCC surface during the electrodeposition at $500^{\circ}C$. Due to the high surface area of dendritic U, the deposits were not submerged into the liquid cadmium pool but grow out of the LCC crucible. Since the U dendrites act as a solid cathode, it prevents the co-deposition of U and TRUs. In this study, the electrodeposition of U onto a LCC was carried out at 440 and $500^{\circ}C$ to compare the morphology and component of U deposits. The U deposits at $440^{\circ}C$ have a specific shape and were stacked regularly at the center of the LCC pool, while the U dendrites (i.e., ${\alpha}$-phase) at $500^{\circ}C$ were grow out of the LCC crucible. Through the microscopic observation and XRD analysis, the electrodeposits at $440^{\circ}C$, which have a round shape, were identified as an intermetallic compound such as $UCd_{11}$. It can be concluded that the LCC electrowinning operation at $440^{\circ}C$ achieves the co-recovery of U and TRU without the formation of U dendrites.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.89-95
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• 2021

Research on the production of lithium hydroxide (LiOH) has been actively conducted in response to the increasing demand for high nickel-based positive electrode materials for lithium-ion batteries. Herein we studied the conversion of lithium oxide (Li2O) through thermal decomposition of lithium carbonate for the production of lithium hydroxide from lithium carbonate (Li2CO3). The reaction mechanism of lithium carbonate with alumina, quartz and graphite crucible during heat treatment was confirmed. When graphite crucible was used, complete lithium oxide powder was obtained. Based on the TG analysis results, reagent-grade lithium carbonate was heat-treated at 700℃, 900℃ and 1100℃ for various time and atmosphere conditions. XRD analysis showed the produced lithium oxide showed high crystallinity at 1100℃ for 1 hour in a nitrogen atmosphere. In addition, several reagent-grade lithium oxides were reacted at 100℃ to convert to lithium hydroxide. XRD analysis confirmed that lithium hydroxide (LiOH) and lithium hydroxide monohydrate (LiOH·H2O) were produced.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.55-60
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• 2022

In this study, a heat treatment experiment was conducted to select a new melt composition that can easily control the unintentionally doped nitrogen (N-UID) without degrading the SiC single crystal quality during TSSG process. The experiment was carried out for about 2 hours at a temperature of 1900℃ under Ar atmosphere. The used melt composition is based on either Si-Ti 10 at% or Si-Cr 30 at%, and also Co or Sc transition metals, which are effective for carbon solubility, were added at 3 at%, respectively. After the experiment, the crucible was cross-sectionally cut, and evaluated the Si-C reaction layer on the crucible-melt interface. As a result, with Sc addition, Si-C reaction layers uniformly occurred with a Si-infiltrated layer (~550 ㎛) and a SiC interlayer (~23 ㎛). This result represented that the addition of Sc is an effective transition metal with high carbon solubility and can feed carbon sources into the melt homogeneously. In addition, Sc is well known to have low reactivity energy with nitrogen compared to other transition metals. Therefore, we expect that both growth rate and Nitrogen UID can be controlled by Si-Sc based melt in the TSSG process.

• Journal of Korea Foundry Society
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.592-597
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• 1997

The microstructure and tensile properties of Mg-Zn-Ca and Mg-Zn-Mn-Ca alloys have been investigated. The alloys were obtained by melting in a low carbon crucible coated with boron nitride under an Ar gas atmosphere to prevent oxidation and combustion. The Mg alloy melt was cast into the metallic mold at room temperature, and cooling part was located at the bottom of mold. The phase formed during solidification of the Mg-Zn-(Mn) alloys containing 0.5%Ca is $Ca_2Mg_6Zn_3$. The yield strength and ultimate tensile strength of the alloys increased with increasing Zn content, but the ductility did not change with increasing Zn content. The addition of Mn improves the yield strength and ultimate tensile strength of the alloys, but the ductility did not change. Tensile fracture of the alloys revealed brittle failure, with cracking along the $Ca_2Mg_6Zn_3$ phase. The variation of stress with strain obeyed the relationship of the ${\sigma}=K{\varepsilon}^n$.

• Journal of Korea Foundry Society
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.488-493
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• 1998

Commercially pure titanium(cp-Ti) and Ti-15wt%Zr-4wt%Nb-4wt%Ta alloy were melted in vacuum induction furnace. According to the chemical analysis, the content of carbon was above ASTM standard in the cast ingots because of using graphite crucible. The TEM micostructures of cp-Ti and Ti alloy shows that chemically stable TiC precipitates distribute in ${\alpha}-Ti$ matrix. In order to examine the properties of cp-Ti and Ti-Zr-Nb-Ta alloy for dental applications, mechanical properties and corrosion resistance were investigated. The anodic polarization properties of Ti-Zr-Nb-Zr alloy were almost same as that of cp-Ti in 1% lactic acid. However, as the results of the anodic polarization test in 5% HCl, it was known that Ti-Zr-Nb-Zr alloy showed a rapid decrease in current density at higher potential in comparison with cp-Ti. The yield stress and tensile strengh in Ti-Zr-Nb-Ta were ${\sigma}_{0.2}=623\;MPa$, ${\sigma}_{T.S.}=708\;MPa$ and these results showed 30% increase in yield stress in comparison with cp-Ti.

• Proceedings of the Korea Association of Crystal Growth Conference
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• 1997.06a
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• pp.145-145
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• 1997

Recent progress of electric technology requires new piezoelectric crystals having superior properties such as zero temperature coefficients and large electromechanical coupling factors. We have developed a series of new leading chandidates, La$_3$Ga5SiO14(langasite, LGS), La3Nb0.5Ga5.5O14(LNG), La3Ta0.5O14(LTG), to satisfy those requirements. High quality LGS, LNG and LTG single crystals, with dimensions of 2 inches in diameter, were successfully grown by the Czochralski method at a pulling rate of 1mm/h. Since no variation of chemical composition was observed when whole melt in a crucible was crystallized, congruency of these compositions was confirmed. Physical constants such as elastic constants, dielectric constants and piezoelectric constants were measured. Filters and oscillators made of grown LGS, LNG and LTG single crystals showed superior properties such as three times wider passband than that of quartz, low insertion loss and easy processing, Langasite family crystals were shown to be superior materials to other known materials such as quartz, LiTaO$_3$, $\alpha$-AlPO$_4$ and Li$_2$B$_4$O7.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2001.06e
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• pp.57-62
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• 2001

Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) launched an intermediate scale steam explosion experiment named Test for Real cOrium Interaction with water (TROI) using reactor material to investigate whether the corium would lead to energetic steam explosion when interacted with cold water at low pressure. The melt-water interaction is confined in a pressure vessel with the multi-dimensional fuel and water pool geometry. The cold crucible technology, where the mixture of powder in a water-cooled cage is heated by high frequency induction, is employed. In this paper, results of the first series of tests ($TROI-1{\sim}5$) were discussed. The ZrO2 jets with 5kg mass and 5cm diameter were poured into the 67cm deep water pool at $30{\sim}95^{\circ}C$. Either spontaneous steam explosions or quenching was observed. The morphology of debris and pressure wave profiles clearly indicates the each case.