Reaction behavior of carbon dioxide with liquid sodium pool

Miyahara, Shinya  ; Ishikawa, Hiroyasu ; Yoshizawa, Yoshio*

Reaction behavior of carbon dioxide (CO) with a liquid sodium pool was experimentally investigated to understand the consequences of boundary tube failure in a sodium-CO heat exchanger. In this study, two kinds of experiments were carried out to investigate the reaction behavior. In one experiment, about 1-5 g of liquid sodium pool were poured into flowing CO to obtain the information mainly about the thermo-chemical conditions to initiate the reaction and the chemical constituents of reaction products. During the experiment, visual observation was made using video-camera and the temperature change of the sodium pool and near the surface was measured by thermocouples. In the other experiment, CO was injected into about 200 g of liquid sodium pool to simulate the boundary failure in the sodium-CO heat exchanger. The temperature change of sodium pool and the cover gas was measured by thermocouples during the experiment. From these experiments, it became clear that the exothermic reaction occurred above a threshold temperature, and useful and indispensable information such as the resulting temperature and pressure rise and the behavior of solid reaction products in the pool was obtained to evaluate the consequences of boundary tube failure incident in a sodium-CO heat exchanger.