Corrosion of carbon steel in saturated high-level waste salt solutions

High level waste stored as crystallized salts is to be removed from carbon steel tanks by water dissolution. Dissolution of the saltcake must be performed in a manner which will not impact the integrity of the tank. Corrosion testing was performed to determine the amount of corrosion inhibitor that must be added to the dissolution water in order to ensure that the salt solution formed would not induce corrosion degradation of the tank materials. The corrosion testing performed included controlled potential slow strain rate, coupon immersion, and potentiodynamic polarization tests. These tests were utilized to investigate the susceptibility of the cooling coil material to stress corrosion cracking in the anticipated environments. No evidence of SCC was observed in any of the tests. Based on these results, the recommended corrosion requirements were that the temperature of the salt solution be less than 50 degrees C and that the minimum hydroxide concentration be 0.4 molar. It was also recommended that the hydroxide concentration not stay below 0.4 molar for longer than 45 days