Thermal behavior and kinetics of the reaction between liquid sodium and calcium hydroxide

Kikuchi, Shin  ; Koga, Nobuyoshi*

In a sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR), sodium-concrete reaction (SCR) may probably occur when liquid sodium from cooling system spilled into the floor may lead to fail the steel liner as protector of the structural concretes. The structural concretes of SFR comprises siliceous concreate as main body of reactor structure and perlite concrete placed between the steel liner and the siliceous concrete serving as a protector and an insulator, respectively. Therefore, the reaction behaviour between the perlite concrete and liquid sodium in the early stage of SCR should be focused. In this study, for the first step of elucidation on SCR, thermal behaviour of sodium-calcium hydroxide reaction was investigated using a differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). It was revealed that the reaction between Na(l) and Ca(OH)(s) initiates at approximately 550 K, producing the product layer composed of CaO(s) and NaOH(s), which is evident from XRD pattern of solid product after DSC measurement. The kinetic consideration of the cited reaction was carried out to obtain the activation energy.