Corrosion Behavior Of Technetium Waste Forms Exposed To Various Aqueous Environments

Potential waste forms for the waste streams from proposed spent nuclear fuel reprocessing strategies are being developed in the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) program. Proposed flow sheets typically involve the separation of technetium from other components in the spent fuel followed by alloying of technetium with other elements to be disposed in a repository. The alloying of technetium is desirable to reduce the melting point of the technetium waste form. It is important to analyze the performance of potential waste forms that may be stored in repositories so that release of technetium can be modeled as a function of environment. However, limited technetium corrosion data are available. This work examines the corrosion behavior of technetium and technetium alloys across a wide range of environments in order to determine corrosion rates and mechanisms.