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Going Nuclear: Notes from the officially unofficial book tour
I work in the analytical labs at one of Europe’s oldest and largest nuclear sites: Sellafield, in northwestern England. I spend my days at the fume hood front, pipette in one hand and radiation probe in the other (and dosimeter pinned to my chest, of course). Outside the lab, I have a second job: I moonlight as a writer and public speaker. My new popular science book—Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World—came out last summer, and it feels like my life has been running at full power ever since.
Huan Zhang, Shelly X. Li, Michael F. Simpson
Nuclear Technology | Volume 208 | Number 3 | March 2022 | Pages 494-502
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2021.1913031
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This study addressed the problem of measuring the total mass of molten salt in a nuclear system such as a nuclear fuel electrorefiner or a molten salt reactor. In theory, soluble tracers can be added to an unknown amount of salt. Measurement of the tracer concentration after allowing time to homogenize the salt and elemental analysis can be used to calculate the total mass of salt in the system. In this study, the mass of a molten salt mixture of equimolar NaCl-CaCl2 was measured using this method for several sequential additions of the tracer salt. Two different tracers (CeCl3 and KCl) with known mass were used in determining the total mass of NaCl-CaCl2 salt in a crucible at 650°C. By limiting the method to tracer concentrations higher than 1.1 wt%, the average mass determination error was 2.39% and 1.82% for CeCl3 and KCl, respectively. Mass estimations were mostly high by this amount compared to the actually known mass.