A review of ceramic coatings for high temperature uranium melting applications
Graphical abstract
Graphite crucible with SiC interlayer and APS coated Y2O3 is suitable for U melting experiments
Section snippets
Pyrochemical reprocessing and the need for the development of high temperature coatings
Nuclear power production in India is expected to progress at a faster rate to meet the required and rising power demand. India had a well-charted three stage nuclear power programme initiated by Dr. Homi J. Bhabha, which judiciously uses the available nuclear fuel resources of the nation. Reprocessing of the used nuclear fuel (spent nuclear fuel) is one of the essential steps in sustaining the growth of nuclear power production in India [1]. The oxide-based nuclear fuels are being reprocessed
Development of ceramic coatings for uranium melting applications
The development of structural materials and coatings for handling molten uranium (U) and other metals in the pyrochemical reprocessing has been initiated in the past few decades. A brief review of the works and findings from the literature are provided in Table 1. Feder et al. [9] studied corrosion of ceramic oxides like alumina, magnesia, zirconia, beryllia, and thoria by molten U and its alloys in the temperature range of 1413–1603 K. They found that complex kinetics are involved including
Concluding remarks
Pyrochemical reprocessing and its technologies for metallic fuels reprocessing are currently under research and development worldwide. The structural materials and selection of coatings for the applications in various key unit operations of the pyrochemical reprocessing of the spent metallic fuels for future liquid metal cooled Fast Breeder reactors plays a crucial role in the success of the process. Different types of substrate materials and coatings have been investigated for the
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Jagadeeswara Rao Ch: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Writing - original draft. E. Vetrivendan: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Writing - review & editing. B. Madhura: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Writing - review & editing, Data curation. S. Ningshen: Writing - review & editing, Supervision.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
The authors sincerely thank Director, IGCAR, Director, MMG, AD, MCG and Head, CSTD for their constant support. The authors also acknowledge all the previous and present colleagues of CSTD, MMG, IGCAR. They initiate and helped in the successful execution and also in the continuation of the present research work on materials and coatings programme related to the pyrochemical reprocessing. Authors also thank Shri. P. Venkatesh, Mr S. Mariyappan and Mr A. S. Ganapathi from MC&MFCG, IGCAR for their
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