Abstract
Molten salt has two significant applications in nuclear engineering: electrolyte for pyroprocessing for spent nuclear fuel treatment and coolant or molten fuel for advanced nuclear reactor systems. Recently, molten salts (chlorides or fluorides) were also proposed for heat transfer and energy storage for solar energy.
For all those applications, binary or ternary salt mixtures were selected. Salt mixtures have some benefits, for example, the lower melting temperature than a single salt. However, the binary and ternary salt mixtures have complex chemistries and any impurity in the salt may lead to changes of salt properties and possibly a high corrosion rate. Therefore, impurity behaviors in molten salt such as the thermodynamic properties are needed to be fully understood.
In this seminar, I will discuss the actinides and lanthanides behaviors in the molten salt obtained by experimental measurements and numerical simulations. Then I will discuss material corrosion by molten salt including the corrosion mechanisms and corrosion mitigation by redox control. The seminar will cover both molten chloride salts and fluoride salts.
Bio
Jinsuo Zhang, Ph.D.
Professor
Virginia Tech
Dr. Jinsuo Zhang has been a professor of the Nuclear Engineering program at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University since January 2017. He was an associate professor at the Ohio State University (OSU) from Sept. 2012 to Dec. 2016. Before that, Prof. Zhang was a staff scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) from 2004 to 2012 and a postdoc research associate from 2001 to 2004.
Prof. Zhang is the director of the Nuclear Materials and Fuel Cycle Research Center. The center focuses on studies of advanced used nuclear fuel reprocessing, material compatibility, and materials corrosion in advanced and current nuclear reactors.