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- Conflict of Interest
- In relation to this article, we declare that there is no conflict of interest.
- Publication history
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Received April 12, 2023
Accepted January 1, 2024
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This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync/3.0) which permits
unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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The Copper-Assisted Dissolution of Magnetite in Hydrazine-Based Inorganic Solution
Abstract
A protective oxide layer forms on the material surfaces of a nuclear power plant during operation due to high temperature.
This study addresses the challenge of developing eff ective chemical decontamination technology for domestic CANDUtype
reactors, specifi cally focusing on the pressurized heavy water reactor (PHWR) system. The Korea Atomic Energy
Research Institute has previously introduced the ‘HyBRID’ (hydrazine-based reductive metal ion decontamination) process
for pressurized water reactors, which notably omits the use of organic acids or chelating agents. To adapt and enhance this
technology for PHWR systems, we investigated the role of copper (Cu) in the dissolution of magnetite, a prominent oxide
layer in nuclear power plants. Our fi ndings reveal that the redox cycle of copper in conjunction with hydrazine and magnetite
demonstrates a notably eff ective dissolution behavior. This study presents a crucial step toward optimizing decontamination
procedures in nuclear reactors.
