Electrochemical monitoring of oxide in molten salts

Abstract

The chemical properties of molten salts make them ideal candidates for next-generation Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). However, oxide impurities cause the salts to become corrosive, therefore an instrument is needed to monitor oxide impurities in the melt to gauge the need for mitigating actions. This paper discusses a proposed electrochemical design and technique to monitor the concentration of oxide in the molten salt in situ. The proposed design will initially be used to measure the oxide content in a eutectic FLiNaK molten salt, and the results will be compared to literature values to validate the proposed design before moving to the novel chloride salt system, NaCl-MgCl₂.