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Title: A radioactive tracer dilution method to determine the mass of molten salt

Abstract

A new technique for molten salt mass determination, termed radioactive tracer dilution, that uses 22Na as a tracer was validated. It has been a challenging problem to determine the mass of molten salt in irregularly shaped containers, where a highly radioactive, high-temperature molten salt was used to process nuclear spent/used fuel during electrochemical recycling (pyro-processing) or for coolant/fuel salt from molten salt reactors. A radioactive source with known activity is dissolved into the salt. After a complete mixture, a small amount of the salt is sampled and measured in terms of its mass and radioactivity. By finding the ratio of the mass to radioactivity, the unknown salt mass in the original container can be precisely determined.

Authors:
; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE)
OSTI Identifier:
1462749
Report Number(s):
INL/JOU-17-42418
DOE Contract Number:  
DE-AC07-05ID14517
Resource Type:
Journal Article
Journal Name:
Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Name: Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS; Radioactive tracer; molten salt; mass determination; volume; pyro-processing; molten salt reactor

Citation Formats

Cao, Lei, Jarrell, Josh, White, Susan, Herminghuysen, Keving, Kauffman, Andrew, Hardtmayer, Douglas, Sanders, Jeff, and Li, Shelly. A radioactive tracer dilution method to determine the mass of molten salt. United States: N. p., 2017. Web. doi:10.1007/s10967-017-5417-5.
Cao, Lei, Jarrell, Josh, White, Susan, Herminghuysen, Keving, Kauffman, Andrew, Hardtmayer, Douglas, Sanders, Jeff, & Li, Shelly. A radioactive tracer dilution method to determine the mass of molten salt. United States. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-017-5417-5
Cao, Lei, Jarrell, Josh, White, Susan, Herminghuysen, Keving, Kauffman, Andrew, Hardtmayer, Douglas, Sanders, Jeff, and Li, Shelly. 2017. "A radioactive tracer dilution method to determine the mass of molten salt". United States. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-017-5417-5. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1462749.
@article{osti_1462749,
title = {A radioactive tracer dilution method to determine the mass of molten salt},
author = {Cao, Lei and Jarrell, Josh and White, Susan and Herminghuysen, Keving and Kauffman, Andrew and Hardtmayer, Douglas and Sanders, Jeff and Li, Shelly},
abstractNote = {A new technique for molten salt mass determination, termed radioactive tracer dilution, that uses 22Na as a tracer was validated. It has been a challenging problem to determine the mass of molten salt in irregularly shaped containers, where a highly radioactive, high-temperature molten salt was used to process nuclear spent/used fuel during electrochemical recycling (pyro-processing) or for coolant/fuel salt from molten salt reactors. A radioactive source with known activity is dissolved into the salt. After a complete mixture, a small amount of the salt is sampled and measured in terms of its mass and radioactivity. By finding the ratio of the mass to radioactivity, the unknown salt mass in the original container can be precisely determined.},
doi = {10.1007/s10967-017-5417-5},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1462749}, journal = {Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {Tue Aug 22 00:00:00 EDT 2017},
month = {Tue Aug 22 00:00:00 EDT 2017}
}

Works referenced in this record:

Fuel Conditioning Facility Electrorefiner Process Model
journal, June 2006


Modeled salt density for nuclear material estimation in the treatment of spent nuclear fuel
journal, September 2010


Fuel Conditioning Facility Electrorefiner Model Predictions versus Measurements
journal, July 2008