Possibility of large uranium particles formed by seawater injection

Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 2012-01-27 10:10

More potentially crappy news, via the Safecast mailing list. I would love to hear some of the BRAWM team comment on the implications of this.

BC 1/27/12

"The US Davis press release:
http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=10131

The study abstract:

PNAS January 23, 2012

Uranyl peroxide enhanced nuclear fuel corrosion in seawater

The Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear accident brought together compromised irradiated fuel and large amounts of seawater in a high radiation field. Based on newly acquired thermochemical data for a series of uranyl peroxide compounds containing charge-balancing alkali cations, here we show that nanoscale cage clusters containing as many as 60 uranyl ions, bonded through peroxide and hydroxide bridges, are likely to form in solution or as precipitates under such conditions. These species will enhance the corrosion of the damaged fuel and, being thermodynamically stable and kinetically persistent in the absence of peroxide, they can potentially transport uranium over long distances.

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/01/13/1119758109.abstract?sid=5bffd4a3-d42a-45a4-b87b-6e9755ef59b6"

‹ Not a Jim Stone Fan ROTFL ›

This would be a problem if

Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 2012-01-27 19:11.

This would be a problem if you were cooling a reactor with seawater. Since the reactors had a meltdown, corrosion of the fuel doesn't change anything. The fuel is now a blob of uranium and fission products. Not rods of zircalloy with uranium pellets.