Measurement of thermal decomposition temperature and rate of sodium hydride

Kawaguchi, Munemichi   

In decommissioning sodium-cooled fast reactors, the operators can be exposed to radiation during dismantling of the cold trap equipment (C/T). The C/T has higher dose equipment because the C/T trapped the tritium of the fission product during the operation to purify the sodium coolant. In this research, the thermal decomposition temperature and rate of sodium hydride were measured as the fundamental research for improvement of the thermorlysis method prior to the dismantling. We measured the thermal decomposition temperature and rate using sodium hydride powder (95.3%, Sigma-Aldrich) in AlO crucible with TG-DTA (STA2500, NETASCH Japan). The heating rates were set to = 2.0, 5.0, 10.0, 20.0 K/min, and the weight decrease was measured. The thermal decomposition temperature and rate were obtained from the temperature of the onset of the weigh decrease and the Kissinger plot, respectively. Furthermore, we set to the thermal decomposition temperature of around 600 K, and the weight decreasing rates were measured. The change of the chemical composition of the sodium hydride with heating (from NaH to Na) was measured with X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) analysis. As a result, the thermal decomposition occurred at around 600 K, and the almost all hydrogen in the sodium hydride released within 1 h. The thermal decomposition rate strongly depended on the heating temperature.