The Czech Republic has a well-developed nuclear programme with two nuclear power plants currently in operation and three operational near-surface repositories serving for the disposal of institutional and operational low-and intermediate-level waste. Spent nuclear fuel will be disposed of in a deep geological repository to be constructed in crystalline or metamorphic rock approximately 500 m below the surface. Czech Ca-Mg bentonites will be used as the buffer and backfilling material. Steel-based materials are currently considered as the reference metallic materials in the Czech disposal canister concept. The preferred design is based on a doublewalled canister with an inner shell of stainless steel and an outer shell of carbon-steel. Both parts of the canister must provide mechanical stability; the wall of the carbon-steel canister will be strengthened for corrosion-resistance purposes. The presented work focuses on canister design as confirmed by means of mechanical, thermal and criticality calculations and a detailed experimental corrosion plan.
New methods for the determination of carbon in sodium using laser ablation inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (LA-ICP-OES) and ICP-OES with pneumatic nebulisation (PN-ICP-OES) were developed. The determination was required for the study of the carbon dioxide reaction with molten sodium at high temperatures (300–600°C). After exposition to CO2, the solidified sodium sample was subjected to direct solid analysis by LA-ICP-OES and to solution analysis. For the determination of carbon in the sodium sample surface layer by LA-ICP-OES, three different matrices containing sodium were tested (NaCl, NaF, and Na2B4O7 · 10H2O) as calibration pellets. The calibration dependences were improved using sodium as the internal standard. Average carbon content in the sodium bulk sample was determined by PN-ICP-OES after the sample dissolution by water vapour.
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.