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Porous tungsten scrubbed by glow discharge cleaning
Researchers conducted experiments in Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory’s Lithium Tokamak Experiment-Beta (LTX-β) showing glow discharge cleaning can be used to effectively clean samples of porous tungsten—used to hold liquid lithium in fusion machine inner walls—manufactured from powder-reconstituted materials, according to a paper published in Nuclear Materials and Energy.
Tungsten is widely used for plasma-facing components in fusion machines, especially in the divertor region where materials must withstand extreme levels of power flow. According to the paper, spark plasma sintering can be used to make tungsten into spongelike samples for holding liquid lithium.
Krishna Moorthi Sankar, James R. Keiser, Dino Sulejmanovic, Tracie M. Lowe, Preet M. Singh
Nuclear Technology | Volume 210 | Number 3 | March 2024 | Pages 391-408
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2023.2229176
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Reliable performance of structural alloys is essential for the successful implementation of Generation-IV fluoride salt–cooled high-temperature reactors (FHRs). Most FHR designs are considering molten salt (2LiF-BeF2), or FLiBe, as a primary coolant or fuel carrier. The main corrosion mechanism for alloys exposed to molten fluoride salts is the selective dealloying of active alloying elements. Alloy composition has a significant effect on their high-temperature mechanical properties, but also affects their corrosion behavior. Although Hastelloy-N and its variants show good corrosion resistance compared to higher Cr-containing Ni- or Fe-based alloys, the mechanical properties of these alloys degrade quickly at temperatures above ~600°C. Twelve Ni-based or Fe-based alloys were selected due to their high temperature stability or their low Cr alloy composition and tested for their corrosion behavior in FLiBe. The results show that the mode and the extent of alloy degradation by selective dissolution mechanism corelates well with the overall alloy composition, and not just the concentration of active elements. It was found that there was good correlation between weight loss of the tested alloys and the ratio of major active elements (Cr, Mn) to that of the more noble alloying elements (Ni, Mo).