Injecting granular carbonates could create cake-like structures in damaged reactors //

Looking for a better method to cool and contain corium, Louie and colleagues turned to granular carbonate minerals like calcite and dolomite, which they say could be injected into the heart of reactors in the event of a meltdown. //

Beginning with a small-scale test, the team heated a few grams of lead oxide powder to 1000 °C to create a molten material similar to corium. They then combined this with both a sample of granular calcite and, for comparison, grains of silicon dioxide (sand).

“We saw that the injectable carbonate minerals work,” Louie said. “It reacted chemically to produce a lot of carbon dioxide, which ‘leavened’ the lead oxide into a nice cake-like structure. The reaction itself had a cooling effect, and all the pores in the ‘cake’ allow for further cooling.” In contrast, the sand used as the control sample had no effect on the simulated corium.