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Colin Judge: Testing structural materials in Idaho’s newest hot cell facility
Idaho National Laboratory’s newest facility—the Sample Preparation Laboratory (SPL)—sits across the road from the Hot Fuel Examination Facility (HFEF), which started operating in 1975. SPL will host the first new hot cells at INL’s Materials and Fuels Complex (MFC) in 50 years, giving INL researchers and partners new flexibility to test the structural properties of irradiated materials fresh from the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) or from a partner’s facility.
Materials meant to withstand extreme conditions in fission or fusion power plants must be tested under similar conditions and pushed past their breaking points so performance and limitations can be understood and improved. Once irradiated, materials samples can be cut down to size in SPL and packaged for testing in other facilities at INL or other national laboratories, commercial labs, or universities. But they can also be subjected to extreme thermal or corrosive conditions and mechanical testing right in SPL, explains Colin Judge, who, as INL’s division director for nuclear materials performance, oversees SPL and other facilities at the MFC.
SPL won’t go “hot” until January 2026, but Judge spoke with NN staff writer Susan Gallier about its capabilities as his team was moving instruments into the new facility.
M. Hara et al.
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 48 | Number 1 | July-August 2005 | Pages 144-147
Technical Paper | Tritium Science and Technology - Tritium Science and Technology - Detritiation, Purification, and Isotope Separation | doi.org/10.13182/FST05-A899
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A new kind of materials that can be applied to a gas chromatographic hydrogen isotope separation system was developed to reduce the amount of Pd-Pt alloy required for making the column and to improve the separation efficiency. Pd and Pt were deposited on -Al2O3 powder by using a barrel sputtering system. Prepared sample powder was characterized from surface morphology, element distributions on the surface, composition and crystallinity. The characterization showed that a uniform layer of Pd-Pt alloy with expected composition was formed on Al2O3 particles. The crystallinity, however, was poor, but improved after annealing at 1073 K for 2 hours. The hydrogen absorbing behavior was also improved by the annealing. A separation column was prepared from the annealed powder and was subjected to experiments on hydrogen isotope separation. The column of annealed powder gave considerably good separation efficiency around room temperature, in spite that only 0.35 g of Pd-Pt was used for the column. The amount of Pd-Pt alloy used here should be compared to previous results, where 1.5 g of Pd-Pt powder was required for high separation efficiency. The new material was quite effective to reduce the amount of Pd-Pt alloy without compromising the separation efficiency and can give further improvement.