Experimental investigation of evaporation behavior for lead-bismuth eutectic and its impurity tellurium

Ohno, Shuji  ; Miyahara, Shinya  ; Kurata, Yuji*

Evaporation behavior of lead-bismuth eutectic (LBE) and of tellurium in LBE pool is being investigated experimentally in order to obtain fundamental data on the coolant technology of accelerator driven transmutation system or fast reactor. The tellurium is used as a non-radioactive chemical surrogate of polonium which would generate and give radiological hazards in the above LBE cooled system. The experiments are conducted with the transpiration method in which saturated vapor in an isothermal evaporation pot is transported by inert carrier gas and collected outside of the pot. The LBE pool is about 500grams in mass and has a surface area of 4cm x 14cm. Two kinds of experiment are performed to measure the collected vapor mass: LBE experiment without impurity under the temperature condition of 450 to 750deg-C and LBE-tellurium experiment.The paper presents experiment outline and several instructive results such as saturated vapor pressure of LBE, information on evaporati