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Division Spotlight
Fuel Cycle & Waste Management
Devoted to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle including waste management, worldwide. Division specific areas of interest and involvement include uranium conversion and enrichment; fuel fabrication, management (in-core and ex-core) and recycle; transportation; safeguards; high-level, low-level and mixed waste management and disposal; public policy and program management; decontamination and decommissioning environmental restoration; and excess weapons materials disposition.
Meeting Spotlight
International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver Downtown
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Latest News
Argonne’s METL gears up to test more sodium fast reactor components
Argonne National Laboratory has successfully swapped out an aging cold trap in the sodium test loop called METL (Mechanisms Engineering Test Loop), the Department of Energy announced April 23. The upgrade is the first of its kind in the United States in more than 30 years, according to the DOE, and will help test components and operations for the sodium-cooled fast reactors being developed now.
Toshio Funada, Isao Nihei, Shunichi Yuhara, Takashi Nakasuji
Nuclear Technology | Volume 45 | Number 2 | September 1979 | Pages 158-165
Technical Paper | Material | doi.org/10.13182/NT79-A32306
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A technique has been developed to measure the hydrogen level in liquid sodium using an inert gas carrier method. Hydrogen was extracted into an inert gas from sodium through a thin nickel membrane in the form of a helically wound tube. The amount of hydrogen in the inert gas was analyzed by gas chromatography. The present method is unique in that it can be used over the wide range of sodium temperatures (150 to 700°C) and has no problems associated with vacuum systems. The partial pressure of hydrogen in sodium was determined as a function of cold-trap tempera-ture (Tc) as log PH2(500°C) (Torr) = 8.796 − 4795/Tc (K) .Sieverts’ constant (Ks) was determined as a function of sodium temperature (T) as log Ks (ppm·Torr−1/2) = 0.171 + 198.1/T (K) .From Sieverts’ constant, the solubility of hydrogen in sodium is calculated as log CH (ppm) = 4.825 − 2398/Tc (K) .It was found that other impurities in sodium, such as (O) and (OH), have little effect on the hydrogen pressure in the sodium loop.