COVER STORY | MATERIALS RESEARCH
Coatings and corrosion
In a bid to minimise the use of nickel deployed within the nuclear sector, the US Argonne National Laboratory has developed a framework
designed to rapidly discover new coatings that could deliver comparable performance without the bulk. Yinbin Miao talks to NEI about the project
NICKEL-BASED ALLOYS LIKE INCONEL or Hastelloy are used in many nuclear reactors. Their use, however, presents a number of challenges. Yinbin Miao, principal materials scientist at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, tells NEI: “Nickel is a critical material and it’s not only costly and hard to transport, but also it is produced in geopolitically unstable areas.” Recognising these issues, Argonne researchers established a two-year investigation programme to discover alternatives. Miao says: “The goal of this research is to try to reduce the reliance on nickel for the nuclear industry, at least for advanced reactor technologies, by figuring out a way to reduce the use of nickel alloys”. He adds a crucial observation: “We noticed in many applications, like in molten salt reactors, Inconel or Hastelloy nickel alloys were selected not because of the high mechanical performance characteristics, but because of the corrosion resistance. In that case, it’s a surface performance, not a bulk material performance that is critical, so we can use a coating with similar or better performance compared to nickel and use a less expensive substrate, like stainless steel, or even cheaper mild steel.” Miao continues: “Because the coating is relatively thin compared to the bulk material the cost is not very sensitive
to the kind of material we’re using. Even if we use some expensive material for the coating, the total cost will still be limited.” While reducing the use of nickel alloy components and
replacing these materials with mild steel or stainless steel that is coated with a highly corrosion-resistant layers will not eliminate nickel, it will reduce its demand for the nuclear sector.
With this in mind, the team set about trying to discover
alternatives to nickel with comparable strength, corrosion resistance and a structure that can withstand the harsh environments found inside nuclear reactors. Funded by Argonne’s Laboratory Directed Research and Development programme the project was launched to not only develop coatings but also to establish a framework to accelerate discovery of new materials appropriate for the highly demanding applications found in the nuclear power space.
A multi-physics model While the solution would provide an equivalent if not better performance compared to Inconel, for example, implementing new material solutions for the nuclear
Above: ATLAS will be used for accelerated testing of the coating 22 | November 2024 |
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