Abstract:To quantify the oxygen content in molten salts, we examined the performance of an yttria-stabilized zirconia solid electrolyte oxygen sensor with a Bi/Bi 2 O 3 reference electrode, focusing on its output accuracy. When the above sensor was tested in a flow of gas with known oxygen partial pressure, p O 2 , a linear relationship between lgp O 2 and the electromotive force (EMF) was observed, and the correlation slope exhibited a positive deviation from Nernstian behavior. EMF measurements performed in molten NaCl-KCl indicated that the oxygen content of this salt mixture increased with increasing oxygen partial pressure in the covering gas, in agreement with Henry's law. Moreover, the EMF exhibited a linear decrease with increasing melt temperature of molten NaCl-KCl, in agreement with the theoretical model. Finally, a relationship between the structure of molten NaCl-KCl and its oxygen diffusion behavior was established. As a result, the developed sensor was demonstrated to be well suited for determining the oxygen content of molten salts.Keywords: molten salt; oxygen sensor; Bi/Bi 2 O 3 ; oxygen content dissolved oxygen. Although the latter parameter significantly affects molten salt processing [7], posing a number of safety threats to operating molten salt reactors (such as reducing the solubility of nuclear fuel and promoting the slow precipitation of uranium oxide), no corresponding uniform and universal quantitation methods exist [8][9][10].
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.