Fiscal Year 2018 Sodium-CO2 Interaction Test

Technical Report · Fri Sep 14 04:00:00 EDT 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1498697· OSTI ID:1498697

Bremer, Nathan ^[1]; Lisowski, Darius ^[1]; Gerardi, Craig ^[1]; Sienicki, James J. ^[1]; Grandy, Christopher ^[1]

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1. Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Nuclear Science and Engineering Division

An experiment campaign was continued in Fiscal Year 2018 in the Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne) SNAKE facility that investigated the interactions between supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO₂) and sodium through injection of sCO₂ into an open surface sodium pool. Two of fifteen previous SNAKE tests revealed that self-plugging of the leakage path/nozzle occurs at higher initial sodium temperatures of about 500 ºC due to chemical reactions involving CO₂, sodium, and sodium-CO₂ reaction products. At lower sodium temperatures, the interaction phenomena involve consumption of injected CO₂ and formation of an agglomerated mass of reaction products without self-plugging. The FY 2018 test investigated interactions at an intermediate initial sodium temperature of about 411 ºC, representative of the interior of a sodium-to-CO₂ heat exchanger in a Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactor (SFR) sCO₂ Brayton Cycle energy conversion system. The experiment was successfully conducted and did not show self-plugging as evidenced by a sustained chemical reaction between the injected CO₂ and sodium and consumption of CO₂.

• Research Organization: Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE), Nuclear Reactor Technologies (NE-7), Advanced Reactor Technologies (ART)
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-06CH11357
• OSTI ID: 1498697
• Report Number(s): ANL-ART--153; 146832
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

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38 RADIATION CHEMISTRY, RADIOCHEMISTRY, AND NUCLEAR CHEMISTRY