| Scope |
To increase the Long - term Corrosion Resistance of the Nuclear Waste Storage Materials in order to Restrict the Escapes of Radionuclides in the Environment
This Symposium will enclose two topics:
1) Improvement of Nuclear Waste Immobilization Glasses (Borosilicate, Phosphate, etc.) and Glass - ceramics' Long - term Durability at their final disposal, through understanding and predicting their Aqueous Corrosion Stability (including studies on Structural Descriptors controlling Solubility of relevant Species, and on Means to Increase Loads of Fission Products), Dissolution Kinetics (including Corrosion Mechanism), Mechanical Properties (Toughness, Strength, etc.), and the Parameters that control these Properties, as they are arising from the Composition, Processing and Structure, and respectively their Correlation to Design an Optimal Nuclear Waste Glass.
There are under consideration two possible Nuclear Waste Forms Systems at the Geological Repository:
a) An entirely Vitreous Waste Form shaped as a Glass or Glass - ceramic Canister
b)The Glass containing Waste hosted in Metal Canisters
2) Improvement of the Stainless Steel Canisters (passively - cooled Dry Cask Storage Systems)for Spent Nuclear Fuel used at the Ground level and of selected Stainless Steel and other Corrosion Resistant Alloys for Canisters to hold Glasses that Immobilize Radionuclides for Long- term Storage at the Geological Repository, through understanding their Stress Corrosion Cracking behavior including the Corrosion Mechanism.
Correlation Composition - Processing - Structure - Properties are sought for.
Modeling by Atomistic Simulations, Machine Learning, Physics based, and Artificial Intelligence, Predicting the Waste Materials' Properties, Designing entirely Vitreous and/or Glass - ceramics Waste Forms to be themselves shaped as Canisters, or alternatively to be contained in Metal Canisters, and Stainless Steel for Containers to temporary store Dry Spent Nuclear Fuel and various Corrosion Resistant Alloys to Host Glasses that Immobilize radionuclides in final disposal.
Experimental work to further investigate details of the Materials' Corrosion process, as well as details of the Structure of Glasses that Immobilize Radionuclides, and evaluate relevant Mechanical Properties of the Vitreous and Glass - Ceramics Waste Forms.
Developments in the Characterization Techniques of the Nuclear Waste Forms' Microstructure and Atomic Structure and their changes during the Corrosion Process, such as Neutron Diffraction (also for Measurement of Residual Stress in the Waste Forms), High - energy X-ray Diffraction, Extended X-ray Absorption Fine Structure (EXAFS), Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), Spectroscopy (Raman, Infrared, etc.), Electron Microscopy (including 4D STEM), Machine Learning for Image/Microstructure Analysis of Oxide Glasses, Atom Probe Tomography vs. NanoSims for unraveling Glasses' Aqueous Corrosion Mechanism. |