Development of metal corrosion testing method simulating equipment of reprocessing of spent nuclear fuels

Matsueda, Makoto   ; Irisawa, Eriko ; Kato, Chiaki   ; Matsui, Hiroki

In the PUREX method, spent fuels are dissolved with nitric acid media. The reprocessing solution containing Fission Products derived from spent fuels is very corrosive to metal materials, the corrosion problem often appears on the surface stainless steel devices. The oxidizing metal ions such as Ruthenium (Ru) and Neptunium (Np) in the process solution is the key reason for severe corrosion of stainless steel. In order to obtain the corrosion rate of stainless steel, we installed the corrosion test apparatus inside an airtight concrete cell in a hot laboratory (the WAste Safety TEsting Facility (WASTEF) of the Japan Atomic Energy Agency), and performed the corrosion tests of stainless steel in the heated nitric acid solution containing Np. The corrosion tests were performed in the temperature range from room temperature to boiling point for 500 hours per batch. The results show that the presence of Np accelerate the stainless steel corrosion in the nitric acid solution.