Compatibility of Fe-Cr-Al alloys with liquid bismuth

Furukawa, Tomohiro  ; Takai, Toshihide  ; Watanabe, Shigeki*; Ishioka, Noriko*

Authors have started the development of liquid bismuth target system for continuous production of therapeutic radionuclide astatine-211 as an application of liquid metal technology cultivated in above research and development, in recent years. Fe-Cr-Al alloy is one of the candidates of the target window in this system. In order to clarify the corrosion of the target window in pure liquid bismuth, the exposure test at elevated temperature was done for Fe-Cr-Al alloys and their references. The test was conducted under argon gas flow, i.e. saturated dissolved oxygen condition in theory. The temperature and exposure time were 500C and 500 hours, respectively. Results of metallurgical examination after the exposure, it was concluded that the corrosion behavior was basically equivalent to that in lead-bismuth eutectic, which is the candidate coolant of heavy metal cooled fast reactors and accelerator driven systems.