Abstract
Boric acid is used in light-water nuclear reactors to control the reactor and is expected to be present as part of the chemistry of a severe accident. Therefore, its influence on other prominent species expected in an accident must be investigated. One such species is tellurium. In the present study, tellurium is volatized, and boric acid is dissolved and injected into the system as a means of studying the interaction between it and tellurium. The experiments were evaluated with ICP-MS and XPS. Results suggest that while there is no direct interaction, boric acid still affects the tendency for tellurium to oxidize. In general, less oxidation was detected in the presence of boric acid than in its absence, especially at high temperatures. The species formed upon oxidation was determined to be TeO2. Since tellurium metal is more volatile than TeO2, this may have implication in a wider severe accident context.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 110412 |
| Journal | Annals of Nuclear Energy |
| Volume | 200 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jun 2024 |
| MoE publication type | A1 Journal article-refereed |
Funding
This work was funded in part by the Nordic nuclear safety research organization (NKS) and APRI 11 (Accident Phenomena of Risk Importance, swedish nuclear safety research). Part of this work was performed at the Chalmers Material Analysis Laboratory, CMAL.
Keywords
- Boric acid
- Fission product
- Severe accidents
- Tellurium
- XPS