On the durability of Pt coated Ti electrodes for the electro-oxidative dissolution of spent nuclear fuels

ABSTRACT

The main objective of this study is to assess the long-term performance of Pt nanoparticle coated anodised Ti coupons which are used for electrochemical dissolution of spent mixed-oxide nuclear fuels during reprocessing. In this work, electrodes were exposed to a simulated dissolver solution containing a representative fraction of low-activity actinides and fission products in 11.5 N nitric acid in a mock-up of the service dissolver vessel. Platinum nanoparticles were coated onto anodised titanium coupons through a seed-mediated hydrothermal method. The coated coupons were then exposed in the simulated dissolver solution for about 1185 h at 110°C. Morphological and compositional analyses confirmed the presence of metallic Pt nanoparticles on the electrode surface with some localised cracking. The electrochemically active surface area of the Pt-nanoparticle coated anodised titanium coupon after exposure was found to be twice that of polycrystalline platinum thus establishing the durability and efficiency of the coating on the electrode.

KEYWORDS:

• Titanium
• Pt nanoparticles
• coating
• durability
• reprocessing
• nitric acid

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge Shri. U. Veeramani for his help in conducting the exposure studies in nitric acid and Shri. T. Nandakumar for XRD characterisation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability

The raw/processed data required to reproduce these findings cannot be shared at this time due to technical or time limitations.

ORCID

S. C. Vanithakumari http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9809-1961

John Philip http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6293-8131

Additional information

Funding

One of the authors, K. R. Rasmi expresses her gratitude to DAE for providing fellowship.