Corrosion Behavior and Surface Treatment of Cladding Materials Used in High-Temperature Lead-Bismuth Eutectic Alloy: A Review

Abstract

Liquid metal fast reactors were considered to be the most promising solution to meet the enormous energy demand in the future. However, corrosion phenomenon caused by the liquid metal, especially in high-temperature lead-bismuth coolant, has greatly hindered the commercialization of the advanced Generation-IV nuclear system. This review discussed current research on the corrosion resistance of structural materials (such as EP823, T91, ODS, and authentic steels) in high-temperature liquid metal served as reactor coolants. The current corrosion resistance evaluation has proved that even for the excellent performance of EP823, the structural material selected in pressurized water reactor is not the ideal material for operation in the high-temperature lead-bismuth eutectic (LBE). Furthermore, the latest coating technologies that are expected to be applied to cladding materials for coolant system were extensively discussed, including Al-containing coatings, ceramic coatings, oxide coatings, amorphous coatings and high-entropy alloy coatings. The detailed comparison summarized the corrosion morphology and corrosion products of various coatings in LBE. This review not only provided a systematic understanding of the corrosion phenomena, but also demonstrated that coating technology is an effective method to solve the corrosion issues of the advanced next-generation reactors.

Effect of Preliminary Irradiation of 321 Steel Substrates with High-Intense Pulsed Ion Beams on Scratch Test Results of Subsequently Deposited AlN Coatings

“…Ceramic coatings are widely deposited on substrates from metals, alloys and steels for various applications [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. In particular, considerable efforts are directed at attempts to implement them for improving the functional characteristics of austenitic stainless steels [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25].…”

Electrochemical Sensors for Controlling Oxygen Content and Corrosion Processes in Lead-Bismuth Eutectic Coolant—State of the Art

“…All the principal industrial methods of surface films formation were used for coating structural materials. Among them were chemical and physical deposition from the gas phase (batch cementing, pulsed laser spraying, vacuum arc technology, thermal spraying), mechanical milling and so on [ 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 ]. The main problem of the application of these coatings to inhibit corrosion of structural materials in the LBE environment was ensuring their sufficient mechanical strength and adhesion on the surface of the main alloy [ 27 ].…”

Environmental degradation of structural materials in liquid lead- and lead-bismuth eutectic-cooled reactors

“…Candidate coating materials that aim primarily at limiting and/or preventing undesirable LMC effects include refractory metals [180,243,626], Al-or Si-containing metallic alloys [192,525,596,[626][627][628][629][630][631][632], and certain ceramic materials [243,626,[632][633][634][635].…”