Hydrogen Absorption by Used Nuclear Fuel Copper Coated Container

Abstract

The used fuel container is a key barrier to isolate and contain used nuclear fuels in a deep geological repository (DGR). The consequences of hydrogen absorption into copper has been recently raised in the safety assessment, hence it is necessary to investigate whether this process poses a risk to the long term integrity of containers. In this study galvanostatic polarization was used to produce hydrogen electrochemically on a copper surface at various rates and durations. Consequently, scanning Kelvin probe (SKP) and thermal desorption analysis (TDA) were applied to investigate the hydrogen uptake by the copper metal. The results to date showed that the efficiency of hydrogen absorption by the copper is both current and time dependent.