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North American construction is back—smaller and faster—at OPG’s Darlington
“The nuclear renaissance is real here,” said Ontario Power Generation’s Subo Sinnathamby on May 8, one year to the day after OPG secured a final investment decision to build the first of four planned BWRX-300 reactors at its Darlington nuclear power plant, and shortly after the new reactor’s foundation was lifted into place. “We got our license to construct in April and our [final investment decision] in May, and we’ve been off to the races since.”
Augustus Merwin, Dev Chidambaram
Nuclear Technology | Volume 195 | Number 2 | August 2016 | Pages 204-212
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NT15-126
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
INCONEL alloy 625® (I625) was exposed to molten LiCl-Li2O-Li to evaluate the material reliability for applications involving the electrolytic reduction of uranium oxide. Samples of I625 were exposed to solutions of LiCl with 1 and 2 wt% Li2O, containing either 0, 0.5, or 1 wt% metallic lithium for 20 h at 650°C. Additional experiments exposed samples to LiCl saturated with Li2O to investigate the mechanism of interaction between materials and the melt. Postexposure sample surface morphology and chemistry were studied using scanning electron microscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Additionally, inductively coupled plasma–optical emission spectroscopy was used to analyze the melt to determine the alloy constituents that leached out of the coupon during the exposure. The inclusion of 0.5 wt% metallic lithium in the molten solution was found to increase the stability of chromium-rich surface films and suppress the dissolution rate of alloying elements, compared to melts of LiCl-Li2O containing no metallic Li. Alternatively, samples exposed to solutions containing 1 wt% metallic lithium did not form surface films and demonstrated evidence of chromium depletion. The degradation of materials exposed to solutions containing 1 wt% metallic lithium was observed to be different from samples exposed to solutions saturated with lithium oxide, demonstrating a chemical effect other than, or in addition to, salt basicity.