Separation of Uptake of Water and Ions in Porous Materials Using Energy Resolved Neutron Imaging
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https://doi.org/10.1007/s11837-020-04101-y Ó 2020 The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society
TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Separation of Uptake of Water and Ions in Porous Materials Using Energy Resolved Neutron Imaging ADRIAN S. LOSKO ,1,2,10 LUKE DAEMEN,3,2 PETER HOSEMANN,4,5 HEINZ NAKOTTE,6 ANTON TREMSIN,7 SVEN C. VOGEL,2 PENGGANG WANG,8 and FOLKER H. WITTMANN8,9 1.—Forschungs-Neutronenquelle Heinz Maier-Leibnitz, 85748 Garching, Germany. 2.—Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545, USA. 3.—Spallation Neutron Source, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, USA. 4.—Department of Nuclear Engineering, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA. 5.—Material Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA. 6.—Department of Physics, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88003, USA. 7.—Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA. 8.—Center for Durability and Sustainability Studies of Shandong Province, Qingdao University of Technology, Qingdao 266033, People’s Republic of China. 9.—Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ), 8093 Zurich, Switzerland. 10.—e-mail: [email protected]
Migration of water and ions dissolved in water through concrete is of interest in civil engineering. In particular, the behavior of radionuclides dissolved in water is of great interest to the nuclear industry because significant numbers of nuclear structures contain large amounts of concrete, acting as a barrier to radionuclides against entering the environment. Study of the migration of water molecules and ions in concrete hitherto required destructive chemical analysis. In this work, we present a non-destructive probe to investigate the uptake of uranium, iodine and water into mortar in situ using a time-of-flight neutron imaging method that allows selecting different neutron energies, providing elemental sensitivity in the analysis of the absorption process. First results indicate that water molecules are the fastest migrating species while iodine is significantly slower, and uranium was not observed to migrate through the structure within the time frame of the experiment and furthermore blocks the migration of water.
INTRODUCTION The properties of concrete are key components of large-scale engineering structures. Especially in nuclear applications, such as power plants or spent nuclear fuel repositories,1–3 the integrity of the concrete used is very important since failure can result in severe environmental consequences. The longevity of the structures in nuclear applications highlights the significance of the concrete, whereby the water penetration is a crucial parameter considering curing and aging of the concrete. Furthermore, motion of water and ions dissolved in it through porous media is important when considering structures that may come in direct contact with radionuclides, such as primary water or cooling pools in the event of a leakage of the steel liners containing the nuclear fuel. Furthermore, concrete
plays an important rol
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