Formation and release of molecular iodine in aqueous phase chemistry during severe accident with seawater injection

Kido, Kentaro ; Hata, Kuniki ; Maruyama, Yu ; Nishiyama, Yutaka ; Hoshi, Harutaka*

Seawater injection into the degraded core is one of the measures of accident management as it has been performed at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. The constituents of seawater deeply relates to the iodine chemistry in the water pool of the suppression chamber, which indicates that it is important to assess their effect on the source term in a severe accident. In the present study, by employing a four-component seawater (SW) model we try to simulate the I molecules yielding in aqueous solution as the function of time, based on several datasets about chemical reaction kinetics and to evaluate its fraction of the initial inventory released from the solution to gas phase. The amount of I molecule in gas phase was in proportion as the SW mixing ratio. The combination of bromide and hydrogen-carbonate anions considerably contributes to the behavior of the history of producing I gas. The oxygen molecules solved from air drastically reduced yielding I gas by catalytically consuming hydroxyl radicals, while the I gas increased by the carbon dioxide gas contained in air. The effects of SW and carbon dioxide gas are recommended to be considered in the quantitative discussion about I gas released from aqueous solution.